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Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

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
Least
Imitate
Better
Imitation
Take
Steal
Different
Copies
Something
Poets
Make
Mature
Good
Stealing
Deface
Poet
Immature

More quotes by T. S. Eliot

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The greatness of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards.
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Culture is the one thing that we cannot deliberately aim at. It is the product of a variety of more or less harmonious activities, each pursued for its own sake.
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This is the feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling, invigorating every word.
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It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous. Resign yourself to be the fool you are... ...We must always take risks. That is our destiny.
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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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If you find examples of humanism which are anti-religious, or at least in opposition to the religious faith of the place and time, then such humanism is purely destructive, for it has never found anything to replace what it has destroyed.
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The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.
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The endless cycle of idea and action, / Endless invention, endless experiment, / Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness / Knowledge of speech, but not of silence / Knowledge of words, and ignorance of The Word.
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At the beach - time you enjoyed wasting, is not wasted.
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To make an end is to make a beginning.
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The river itself has no beginning or end. In its beginning, it is not yet the river in the end it is no longer the river. What we call the headwaters is only a selection from among the innumerable sources which flow together to compose it. At what point in its course does the Mississippi become what the Mississippi means?
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Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.
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When the gods know that a god hath fallen, With this kindly feeling They do encourage him-- Be thou a god again and again.
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No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.
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Hungry Hatred, will not strive against intelligence self-interest.
T. S. Eliot
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And they write innumerable books being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness.
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It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.
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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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People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events.
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Every nation, every race, has not only its own creative, but its own critical turn of mind and is even more oblivious of the shortcomings and limitations of its critical habits than of those of its creative genius.
T. S. Eliot