Once upon a time, a young man from St. Louis, Missouri, journeyed across the Atlantic, leaving his American roots behind to immerse himself in the labyrinth of European modernism. That man was none other than Thomas Stearns Eliot, or as we've come to know him, T.S. Eliot. Over the decades, he penned groundbreaking works that transformed the very DNA of poetry, leaving us with some of the most breathtaking and thought-provoking lines ever written. Whether you're an aficionado of his work or just starting to explore the realm of poetry, these “50 Modernist T.S. Eliot Quotes” are certain to sweep you off your feet and introduce you to a universe where classicism and modernism collide.
T.S. Eliot, the scribe of the Jazz Age, was a master of merging the past and present. His words, a fusion of poetic diction and modern speech, challenged traditional norms, and often left readers spiraling in an existential crisis. But that's where the beauty of his work lies, in the challenge, the wonder, the quest for understanding. Packed with meaning, Eliot’s quotes not only force us to question life's complexities but also lead us towards self-realization. Dive headfirst into this unique collection of “T.S. Eliot Quotes” – a whirlwind journey through the mesmerizing world of modernist poetry!
The Wasteland and Prufrock
1. “April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.” – The Waste Land
2. “Do I dare disturb the universe?” – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
3. “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
4. “In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo.” – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
5. “So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.” – East Coker
6. “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” – The Waste Land
7. “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.” – The Hollow Men
8. “What is that noise? The wind under the door.” – The Waste Land
9. “Time for you and time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions.” – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
10. “Distracted from distraction by distraction.” – Burnt Norton
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Time, Eternity, and the Human Condition
- “Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage we did not take, towards the door we never opened, into the rose garden.” – Four Quartets
- “Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind cannot bear very much reality.” – Four Quartets
- “Every moment is a fresh beginning.” – The Cocktail Party
- “To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.” – The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
- “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.” – Four Quartets
- “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.” – Four Quartets
- “Home is where one starts from.” – Four Quartets
- “For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.” – Four Quartets
- “Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the Shadow.” – The Hollow Men
- “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 Rock
Reflections on Love and Loss
- “The journey, not the destination matters…” – Little Gidding
- “The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do more, and you are not yet decrepit enough to turn them down.” – To My Younger Brother
- “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – Preface to Transit of Venus
- “You are the music while the music lasts.” – The Dry Salvages
- “And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, and the dry stone no sound of water.” – The Waste Land
- “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.” – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
- “Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.” – The Cocktail Party
- “I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you which shall be the darkness of God.” – East Coker
- “The endless cycle of idea and action, endless invention, endless experiment, brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness.” – Burnt Norton
- “Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.” – The Cocktail Party
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Faith, Doubt, and the Divine
- “This is one moment, but know that another shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.” – Four Quartets
- “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.” – Four Quartets
- “In my end is my beginning.” – Four Quartets
- “So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres.” – East Coker
- “In my beginning is my end.” – Four Quartets
- “The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man.” – The Public Library
- “To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, you must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.” – East Coker
- “These fragments I have shored against my ruins.” – The Waste Land
- “And what you thought you came for is only a shell, a husk of meaning.” – Little Gidding
- “If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” – T.S. Eliot, Prose
Lasting Thoughts and Reflections
- “I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.” – T.S. Eliot, Conversation
- “The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.” – Little Gidding
- “Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.” – T.S. Eliot
- “Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.” – Ash Wednesday
- “There will be time, there will be time. To wonder, ‘Do I dare?' and, ‘Do I dare?'” – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
- “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.” – T.S. Eliot, Prose
- “I learn by going where I have to go.” – Ash Wednesday
- “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” – Four Quartets
- “Art never improves, but… the material of art is never quite the same.” – Tradition and the Individual Talent
- “For I have known them all already, known them all—Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
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