Those who say they give the public what it wants begin by underestimating public taste and end by debauching it. T. S. Eliot More Quotes by T. S. Eliot More Quotes From T. S. Eliot It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us escape, not from our own time - for we are bound by that - but from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our time. T. S. Eliot emotional education school Any poet, if he is to survive beyond his 25th year, must alter; he must seek new literary influences; he will have different emotions to express. T. S. Eliot emotion different years I believe the moment of birth Is when we have knowledge of death I believe the season of birth Is the season of sacrifice. T. S. Eliot birth sacrifice believe When lovely woman stoops to folly and Paces about her room again, alone, She smooths her hair with automatic hand, And puts a record on the gramophone. T. S. Eliot lovely hair hands The destination cannot be described; / You will know very little until you get there; / You will journey blind. T. S. Eliot blind journey littles The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. T. S. Eliot immature unique feelings Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to. T. S. Eliot theatre producers blood The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all. T. S. Eliot use ordinary feelings The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink. T. S. Eliot ink purpose blood I do not believe that any writer has ever exposed this bovarysme, the human will to see things as they are not, more clearly than Shakespeare. T. S. Eliot exposed humans believe In our rhythm of earthly life we tire of light. We are glad when the day ends, when the play ends; and ecstasy is too much pain. T. S. Eliot pain light life Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion. T. S. Eliot individual-talent poetry personality Time past and time future allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time. T. S. Eliot consciousness littles past This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper. T. S. Eliot poetry death religion Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative; in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself. T. S. Eliot absolutes paradox mean To become what you are not, behave as you do not. T. S. Eliot behave 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 aptitude interest study Every moment is a new and shocking transvaluation of all we have ever been. T. S. Eliot shocking moments We have all our private terrors, our particular shadows, our secret fears. We are afraid in a fear which we cannot face, which none understands, and our hearts are torn from us, our brains unskinned like the layers of an onion, ourselves the last. T. S. Eliot secret brain heart 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. T. S. Eliot snickers coats greatness
