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We do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in but its fitting in is a test of its value - a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity.

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
Valuable
Fitting
Fit
Judges
None
Novelty
Judging
Applied
Value
Conformity
Quite
Slowly
Cautiously
Values
Test
Infallible
True
Tests
Fits

More quotes by T. S. Eliot

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I shall not want Honor in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney And have talk with Coriolanus And other heroes of that kidney.
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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.
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No place of grace for those who avoid the Face. No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the Voice.
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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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Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.
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Ash on an old man's sleeve / Is all the ash the burnt roses leave, / Dust in the air suspended / Marks the place where a story ended.
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Time past and time future allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time.
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My greatest trouble is getting the curtain up and down.
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Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place.
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It is self-evident that St. Louis affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is something in having passed one's childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in Boston, or New York, or London.
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It is impossible to design a system so perfect that no one needs to be good.
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I do not approve the extermination of the enemy the policy of exterminating or, as it is barbarously said, liquidating enemies, is one of the most alarming developments of modern war and peace, from the point of view of those who desire the survival
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If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
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If we all were judged according to the consequences Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention And beyond our limited understanding Of ourselves and others, we should all be condemned.
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We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
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The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.
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Teach us to care and not to care
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life is long between the desire and the spasm.
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Art is the escape from personality.
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That is the worst moment, when you feel you have lost / The desires for all that was most desirable, / Before you are contented with what you can desire / Before you know what is left to be desired / And you go on wishing that you could desire / What desire has left behind.
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