T. S. Eliot Quotes

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.

The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows,
Are proud and implacable, passionate foes;
It is always the same, wherever one goes.
And the Pugs and the Poms, although most people say
that they do not like fighting, will often display
Every symptom of wanting to join in the fray.
And they
Bark bark bark bark bark bark
Until you can hear them all over the park.

And what you thought you came for
is only a shell, a husk of meaning
from which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
if at all. Either you had no purpose
or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfillment.

Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.

I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. 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.

Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon — O swallow swallow

We do not pass through the same door twice
Or return to the door through which we did not pass

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood — Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

What the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

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 agèd eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign?

A christian martyrdom is never an accident, for Saints are not made by accident.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.

In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.