Quote

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.

T. S. Eliot

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Ideas
Ignorance
Experiment
Speech
Cycles
Silence
Contemplation
Word
Motion
Knowledge
Experiments
Words
Invention
Idea
Endless
Cycle
Action
Brings
Stillness

More quotes by T. S. Eliot

Image
Those who say they give the public what it wants begin by underestimating public taste and end by debauching it.
T. S. Eliot
Image
Dear Mother, I am getting on nicely in my work at the bank, and like it ... I want to find out something about the science of money while I am at it it is an extraordinarily interesting subject.
T. S. Eliot
Image
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?
T. S. Eliot
Image
The fool,fixed in his folly,may think He can turn the wheel on which he turns.
T. S. Eliot
Image
O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant
T. S. Eliot
Image
My greatest trouble is getting the curtain up and down.
T. S. Eliot
Image
If you start with a bang, you won't end with a whimper.
T. S. Eliot
Image
At the still point, there the dance is.
T. S. Eliot
Image
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.
T. S. Eliot
Image
He is haunted by a demon, a demon against which he feels powerless, because in its first manifestation it has no face, no name, nothing and the words, the poem he makes, are a kind of exorcism of this demon.
T. S. Eliot
Image
To make an end is to make a beginning.
T. S. Eliot
Image
No one can become really educated without having pursued some study in which he took no interest- for it is a part of education to learn to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude.
T. S. Eliot
Image
The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart, And sang within the bloody wood When Agamemnon cried aloud, And let their liquid siftings fall To stain the stiff dishonored shroud.
T. S. Eliot
Image
Whatever you do, don't whimper, but take the consequences.
T. S. Eliot
Image
The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.
T. S. Eliot
Image
If you want it you must obtain it by great labor.
T. S. Eliot
Image
I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones.
T. S. Eliot
Image
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless Neither from nor towards at the still point, there the dance is.
T. S. Eliot
Image
This is the feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling, invigorating every word.
T. S. Eliot
Image
To country people Cows are mild, And flee from any stick they throw But I’m a timid town bred child, And all the cattle seem to know.
T. S. Eliot