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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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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
Unless
Ought
Understand
Enough

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Probably, indeed, the larger part of the labor of an author composing his work is critical labor the labor of sifting, combining, constructing, expunging, correcting, testing. This frightful toil is as much critical as creative.
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and now you live dispersed on ribbon roads, And no man knows or cares who is his neighbor Unless his neighbor makes too much disturbance, But all dash to and fro in motor cars, Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.
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Where there is no temple there shall be no homes.
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What a poem means is as much what it means to others as what it means to the author and indeed, in the course of time a poet may become merely reader in respect to his own works, forgetting his original meaning.
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When forced to work within a strict framework, the imagination is taxed to its utmost and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom, the work is likely to sprawl.
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Any religion is forever in danger of petrifaction into mere ritual and habit, though ritual and habit be essential to religion.
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If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
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You have to risk going too far to discover just how far you can really go.
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Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow
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No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.
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Past art is subject to change.
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Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.
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Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
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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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For you know only a heap of broken images
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Light Light The visible reminder of Invisible Light.
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Whatever you do, don't whimper, but take the consequences.
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War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted.
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