And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices And the weak spirit quickens to rebel For the bent golden-rod and … - T. S. Eliot

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices in the lost lilac and the lost sea voices and the weak spirit quickens to rebel for the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell quickens to recover.

When a term has become as universally sanctified as 'democracy' now is, I begin to wonder whether it means anything, in meaning too many things […]. Some persons have gone so far as to affirm, as something self-evident, that democracy is the only regime compatible with Christianity; on the other hand, the word is not abandoned by sympathisers with the government of Germany. If anybody ever attacked democracy, I might discover what the word means. Certainly there is a sense in which Britain and America are more democratic than Germany; but on the other hand, defenders of the totalitarian system can make out a plausible case for maintaining that what we have is not democracy, but financial oligarchy.

What have we to do but stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards in an age which advances progressively backwards?

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.