T S Eliot Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to T S Eliot. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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It is never too late to be what you might have been.
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George Eliot
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Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.
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Charles William Eliot
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For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice.
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T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets)
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Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
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T.S. Eliot
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This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
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T.S. Eliot
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What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?
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George Eliot
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To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.
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T.S. Eliot (The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism)
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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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T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets)
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Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
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T.S. Eliot
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Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
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George Eliot (Impressions of Theophrastus Such)
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Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.
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T.S. Eliot
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My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.' 'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best.
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Jane Austen (Persuasion)
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April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.
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T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land)
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I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.
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George Eliot
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The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man
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T.S. Eliot
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Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.
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T.S. Eliot
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For I have known them all already, known them allβ€” Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
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T.S. Eliot (T. S. Eliot Reading: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Others (Caedmon1045))
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Books. Cats. Life is good.
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T.S. Eliot
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Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
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T.S. Eliot
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I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
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T.S. Eliot
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What is hell? Hell is oneself. Hell is alone, the other figures in it Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from And nothing to escape to. One is always alone.
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T.S. Eliot
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It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." (Little Gidding)
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T.S. Eliot
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We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.
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T.S. Eliot (The Cocktail Party)
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Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets)
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If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
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T.S. Eliot
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I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
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T.S. Eliot
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There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.
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T.S. Eliot
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It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses.
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George Eliot
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Unreal friendship may turn to real But real friendship, once ended, cannot be mended
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T.S. Eliot (Murder in the Cathedral)
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You are the music while the music lasts.
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T.S. Eliot
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Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow
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T.S. Eliot (The Hollow Men)
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If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.
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T.S. Eliot
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Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.
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T.S. Eliot
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It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage we did not take, towards the door we never opened, into the rose garden.
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T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets)
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It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are still alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them.
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George Eliot
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And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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Whatever you think, be sure it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that is what you feel.
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T.S. Eliot
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What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
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T.S. Eliot
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O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude...
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George Eliot (O May I Join the Choir Invisible! And Other Favourite Poems)
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But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life--to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?
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George Eliot (Adam Bede)
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I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.
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T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)
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No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
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George Eliot (Daniel Deronda)
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The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.
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T.S. Eliot
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Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.
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George Eliot (The Mill on the Floss)
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Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity
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T.S. Eliot
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Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
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T.S. Eliot
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These fragments I have shored against my ruins
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T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
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Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.
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George Eliot
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Distracted from distraction by distraction
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T.S. Eliot
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Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
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T.S. Eliot (The Sacred Wood)
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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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T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
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Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
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George Eliot
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Keep true. Never be ashamed of doing right. Decide what you think is right and stick to it.
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George Eliot
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We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass, the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows, the same redbreasts that we used to call β€˜God’s birds’ because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?
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George Eliot (The Mill on the Floss)
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We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; - The Hollow Men
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T.S. Eliot (Poems: 1909-1925)
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What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurtsβ€” not to hurt others.
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
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T.S. Eliot
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Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past.
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T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets)
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Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
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T.S. Eliot
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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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T.S. Eliot (The Cocktail Party)
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Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death.
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Jane Austen (Persuasion)
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Selfishβ€” a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice.
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George Eliot
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Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter.
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T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets)
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Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these.
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T.S. Eliot
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So I find words I never thought to speak In streets I never thought I should revisit When I left my body on a distant shore.
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T.S. Eliot
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I learn a great deal by merely observing you, and letting you talk as long as you please, and taking note of what you do not say.
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T.S. Eliot
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Animals are such agreeable friends―they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
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George Eliot (Mr Gilfil's Love Story (Hesperus Classics))
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Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
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George Eliot (Adam Bede)
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Hold up your head! You were not made for failure, you were made for victory. Go forward with a joyful confidence.
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George Eliot
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I am not imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean.
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George Eliot (The Mill on the Floss)
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..for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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Do I dare Disturb the universe?
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T.S. Eliot (The Wasteland, Prufrock and Other Poems)
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It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.
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George Eliot
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Light Light The visible reminder of Invisible Light.
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T.S. Eliot
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And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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People are almost always better than their neighbors think they are.
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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Success is relative. It is what we make of the mess we have made of things.
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T.S. Eliot
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I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid.
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T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
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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. Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. β€”T.S. Eliot, from β€œLittle Gidding,” Four Quartets (Gardners Books; Main edition, April 30, 2001) Originally published 1943.
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T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets)
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We don't actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace.
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T.S. Eliot
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I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
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T.S. Eliot
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Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still.
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T.S. Eliot
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Don't judge a book by its cover
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George Eliot (The Mill on the Floss)
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Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you.' I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl's life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her... I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me.
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George Eliot
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And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor - And this, and so much more? -
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T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
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I must tell you that I should really like to think there's something wrong with me- Because, if there isn't, then there's something wrong with the world itself-and that's much more frightening! That would be terrible. So I'd rather believe there is something wrong with me, that could be put right.
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T.S. Eliot (The Cocktail Party)
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A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
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T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land)
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Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." [Letter to Miss Lewis, Oct. 1, 1841]
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George Eliot (George Eliot’s Life, as Related in her Letters and Journals (Cambridge Library Collection - Literary Studies))
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At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
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T.S. Eliot
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I had no one to help me, but the T. S. Eliot helped me. So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers – a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.
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Jeanette Winterson (Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?)
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April is the cruelest month, T.S. Eliot wrote, by which I think he meant (among other things) that springtime makes people crazy. We expect too much, the world burgeons with promises it can't keep, all passion is really a setup, and we're doomed to get our hearts broken yet again. I agree, and would further add: Who cares? Every spring I go out there anyway, around the bend, unconditionally. ... Come the end of the dark days, I am more than joyful. I'm nuts.
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Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)
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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. All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, All our ignorance brings us nearer to death, But nearness to death no nearer to God. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.
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T.S. Eliot
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To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. In order to possess what you do not possess You must go by the way of dispossession. In order to arrive at what you are not You must go through the way in which you are not. And what you do not know is the only thing you know And what you own is what you do not own And where you are is where you are not.
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T.S. Eliot
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Marginalia Sometimes the notes are ferocious, skirmishes against the author raging along the borders of every page in tiny black script. If I could just get my hands on you, Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien, they seem to say, I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head. Other comments are more offhand, dismissive - Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" - that kind of thing. I remember once looking up from my reading, my thumb as a bookmark, trying to imagine what the person must look like who wrote "Don't be a ninny" alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson. Students are more modest needing to leave only their splayed footprints along the shore of the page. One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's. Another notes the presence of "Irony" fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal. Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers, Hands cupped around their mouths. Absolutely," they shout to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin. Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!" Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points rain down along the sidelines. And if you have managed to graduate from college without ever having written "Man vs. Nature" in a margin, perhaps now is the time to take one step forward. We have all seized the white perimeter as our own and reached for a pen if only to show we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages; we pressed a thought into the wayside, planted an impression along the verge. Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria jotted along the borders of the Gospels brief asides about the pains of copying, a bird singing near their window, or the sunlight that illuminated their page- anonymous men catching a ride into the future on a vessel more lasting than themselves. And you have not read Joshua Reynolds, they say, until you have read him enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling. Yet the one I think of most often, the one that dangles from me like a locket, was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye I borrowed from the local library one slow, hot summer. I was just beginning high school then, reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room, and I cannot tell you how vastly my loneliness was deepened, how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed, when I found on one page A few greasy looking smears and next to them, written in soft pencil- by a beautiful girl, I could tell, whom I would never meet- Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love.
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Billy Collins (Picnic, Lightning)