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Words move, music moves Only in time but that which is only living Can only die. Words, after speech, reach Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern, Can words or music reach The stillness.

T. S. Eliot

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T. S. Eliot
Age: 76 †
Born: 1888
Born: September 26
Died: 1965
Died: January 4
Critic
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Lyricist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Social Critic
St. Louis
Missouri
Thomas Stearns Eliot
Eliot
T S Eliot
Thomas Eliot
T.S. Eliot
Living
Patterns
Form
Reach
Music
Speech
Time
Move
Silence
Quartets
Dies
Stillness
Words
Pattern
Moving
Moves

More quotes by T. S. Eliot

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I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you Which shall be the darkness of God. . . . So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
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The Rum Turn Tugger is a terrible bore: When you let him in, then he wants to be out He's always on the wrong side of every door, And as soon as he's at home, then he'd like to get about.
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When the Stranger says: What is the meaning of this city? Do you huddle close together because you love each other? What will you answer? We all dwell together To make money from each other? or This is a community? Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us... and we drown.
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Whatever you do, don't whimper, but take the consequences.
T. S. Eliot
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Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign?
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We ask only to be reassured About the noises in the cellar And the window that should not have been open
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When comparing works of art, it is important that the art itself, and not the artists, be considered.
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It is not enough to understand what we ought to be, unless we know what we are and we do not understand what we are, unless we know what we ought to be.
T. S. Eliot
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Poetry is a mug's game.
T. S. Eliot
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In a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away.
T. S. Eliot
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The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre - To be redeemed from fire by fire.
T. S. Eliot
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Shape without form, shade without color, Paralyzed force, gesture without motion Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us-if at all-not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men.
T. S. Eliot
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The Civil War is not ended: I question whether any serious civil war ever does end.
T. S. Eliot
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In the end is my beginning.
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We are not here to triumph by fighting, by strata gem, or by resistance, not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast and have conquered. We have only to conquer now, by suffering. This is the easier victory.
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In life there is not time to grieve long.
T. S. Eliot
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There is no absolute point of view from which real and ideal can be finally separated and labelled.
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I take as metaphysical poetry that in which what is ordinarily apprehensible only by thought is brought within the grasp of feeling, or that in which what is ordinarily only felt is transformed into thought without ceasing to be feeling.
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As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.
T. S. Eliot