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.
The Bad Poet is usually Unconscious where he ought to be Conscious and Conscious where he ought to be Unconscious.
Genuine poetry can Communicate before it is Understood.
Poetry should Help, not only to Refine the Language of the Time but to Prevent it from Changing too rapidly.
Poetry may make us from Time to time a little more Aware of the Deeper, unnamed Feelings which form the Substratum of our being, to which we rarely Penetrate.
Poetry is not an Assertion of Truth but the Making of that Truth more fully Real to us.
When a Poet’s mind is Perfectly equipped for its Work, it is Constantly amalgamating disparate Experiences.
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.
Every Phrase and every Sentence is an End and a Beginning, Every poem an Epitaph.
Humankind cannot Bear very much Reality.
There is One who Remembers the Way to your Door: Life you may Evade but Death you shall not.
We don’t actually fear Death, we Fear that no one will Notice our Absence, that we will Disappear without a Trace.
The Old should be Explorers, be Curious, Risk Transgression and Explore oldness itself.
People to whom Nothing has ever happened, Cannot understand the Unimportance of Events.
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.
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.
Success is Relative. It is what we Make of the Mess, we have Made of things.
Where does one go from a World of Insanity? Somewhere on the Other side of Despair.
Humor is also a Way of saying something Serious.
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.
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.
More Quotes: Quotes on Life by T.S.Eliot
