Top quotes by T. S. Eliot

Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree. Votes: 42

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. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. Votes: 28

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? Votes: 24

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Votes: 23

I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics. Votes: 20

O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Votes: 20

And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. Votes: 17

A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignificance. Votes: 17

Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome. Votes: 17

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. Votes: 16

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. Votes: 16

The Nobel is a ticket to one's own funeral. No one has ever done anything after he got it. Votes: 15

I had seen birth and death but had thought they were different. Votes: 14

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. Votes: 13

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. Votes: 12

As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing. Votes: 12

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing. Votes: 12

The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Votes: 12

April is the cruellest month. Votes: 11

We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion. Votes: 9

Home is where one starts from. Votes: 9

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first. Votes: 9

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. Votes: 9

Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly. Votes: 9

The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living. Votes: 8

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. Votes: 6

Art never improves, but... the material of art is never quite the same. Votes: 6

Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow, but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment. Votes: 6

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them. Votes: 4

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. Votes: 3

It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves. Votes: 0

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. Votes: 0

A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good. Votes: 0

A christian martyrdom is never an accident, for Saints are not made by accident. Votes: 0

The trouble of the modern age is not merely the inability to believe certain things about God and man which our forefathers believed, but the inability to feel towards God and man as they did. Votes: 0

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." Votes: 0

Sovegna vos.Here are the years that walk between, bearingAway the fiddles and the flutes, restoringOne who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearingWhite light folded, sheathed about her, folded.The new years walk, restoringThrough a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoringWith a new verse the ancient rhyme. RedeemThe time. RedeemThe unread vision in the higher dreamWhile jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse." Votes: 0

We see the light but see not whence it comes. O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee!" Votes: 0

For our own past is covered by the currents of action,But the torment of others remains an experienceUnqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition.People change, and smile: but the agony abides." Votes: 0

Touch meIt's so easy to leave meAll alone with my memoryOf my days in the sunIf you touch meYou'll understand what happiness isLook, a new day has began" Votes: 0

Artistic inevitability lies in the complete adequacy of the external to the emotion. Votes: 0

The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart, And sang within the bloody wood When Agamemnon cried aloud, And let their liquid siftings fall To stain the stiff dishonored shroud. Votes: 0

So the lover must struggle for words. Votes: 0

My name is only an anagram of toilets. Votes: 0

If you find examples of humanism which are anti-religious, or at least in opposition to the religious faith of the place and time, then such humanism is purely destructive, for it has never found anything to replace what it has destroyed. Votes: 0

Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity. Votes: 0

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper. Votes: 0

Cling, swing, Spring, sing, Swing up into the apple tree. Votes: 0

April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain. Votes: 0

Here were decent godless people; Their only monument the asphalt road And a thousand lost golf balls. Votes: 0

If you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human being can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby 'it.' Votes: 0

When we read of human beings behaving in certain ways, with the approval of the author, who gives his benediction to this behavior by his attitude towards the result of the behavior arranged by himself, we can be influenced towards behaving in the same way. Votes: 0

I must say Bernard Shaw is greatly improved by music. Votes: 0

Friendship should be more than biting time can sever. Votes: 0

The wounded surgeon plies the steel That questions the distempered part; Beneath the bleeding hands we feel The sharp compassion of the healer's art Resolving the enigma of the fever chart. Votes: 0

Birth, and copulation, and death; that's all the facts when you come to brass tacks. Votes: 0

The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o'clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. And then the lighting of the lamps. Votes: 0

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. Votes: 0

The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an "objective correlative"; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula for that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked. Votes: 0

If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are? Votes: 0

For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. Votes: 0

The True Church can never fail. For it is based upon a rock. Votes: 0

I should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. Votes: 0

Cold Mountain Buddhas Han Shan Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness be dancing. Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning. The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry, The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony Of death and birth. Votes: 0

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow Votes: 0

Business today consists in persuading crowds. Votes: 0

No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. Votes: 0

Liberty is a different kind of pain from prison. Votes: 0

In spite of all the dishonour, the broken standards, the broken lives, The broken faith in one place or another, There was something left that was more than the tales Of old men on winter evenings. Votes: 0

Disillusion can become itself an illusion If we rest in it. Votes: 0

We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors' victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will triumph. Votes: 0

Distracted from distraction by distraction Votes: 0

The usual dog about the town is much inclined to play the clown. Votes: 0

Tennyson and Browning are poets, and they think; but they do not feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose. A thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility. Votes: 0

You are the music while the music lasts. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

There are flood and drought over the eyes and in the mouth, dead water and dead sand contending for the upper hand. The parched eviscerate soil gapes at the vanity of toil, laughs without mirth. This is the death of the earth. Votes: 0

I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Votes: 0

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. Votes: 0

An editor should tell the author his writing is better than it is. Not a lot better, a little better. Votes: 0

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. Votes: 0

To make an end is to make a beginning. Votes: 0

In my beginning is my end. Votes: 0

To approach the stranger is to invite the unexpected, release a new force, let the genie out of the bottle. It is to start a new train of events that is beyond your control... Votes: 0

Old men ought to be explorers. Votes: 0

The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started. Votes: 0

Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand. Votes: 0

There's no vocabulary For love within a family, love that's lived in But not looked at, love within the light of which All else is seen, the love within which All other love finds speech. This love is silent. Votes: 0

Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say this we know. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

There is not a more repulsive spectacle than on old man who will not forsake the world, which has already forsaken him. Votes: 0

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be: am an attendant lord, one that will do to swell a progress, start a scene or two, advise the prince. Votes: 0

[On The Waste Land:] Various critics have done me the honor to interpret the poem in terms of criticism of the contemporary world, have considered it, indeed, as an important bit of social criticism. To me it was only the relief of a personal and wholly insignificant grouse against life; it is just a piece of rhythmical grumbling. Votes: 0

For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. Votes: 0

The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man Votes: 0

There are three conditions which often look alike Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow: Attachment to self and to things and to persons, detachment From self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference, ... . Votes: 0

Shape without form, shade without color, Paralyzed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us-if at all-not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men. Votes: 0

We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Learning together. Votes: 0

Fading, fading: strength beyond hope and despair climbing the third stair. Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only. Votes: 0

I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids Sprouting despondently at area gates. Votes: 0

Humankind cannot bear very much reality. Votes: 0

The endless cycle of idea and action, / Endless invention, endless experiment, / Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; / Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; / Knowledge of words, and ignorance of The Word. Votes: 0

War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. Votes: 0

It's strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words. Votes: 0

Each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling. Votes: 0

The name that no human research can discover-- But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name. Votes: 0

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? Votes: 0

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant Votes: 0

To justify Christian morality because it provides a foundation of morality, instead of showing the necessity of Christian morality from the truth of Christianity, is a very dangerous inversion. Votes: 0

We can say of Shakespeare, that never has a man turned so little knowledge to such great account. Votes: 0

There is no such thing as a lost cause, because there is no such thing as a gained cause Votes: 0

Success is relative. It is what we make of the mess we have made of things. Votes: 0

I take as metaphysical poetry that in which what is ordinarily apprehensible only by thought is brought within the grasp of feeling, or that in which what is ordinarily only felt is transformed into thought without ceasing to be feeling. Votes: 0

There is no method but to be very intelligent. Votes: 0

time past and time future what might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Votes: 0

The tendency of liberals is to create bodies of men and women-of all classes-detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion-mob rule. And a mob will be no less a mob if it is well fed, well clothed, well housed, and well disciplined. Votes: 0

In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing Votes: 0

Poetry is a mug's game. Votes: 0

Let's not be narrow, nasty, and negative. Votes: 0

It is worth dying to find out what life is. Votes: 0

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought. Votes: 0

We do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fitting in is a test of its value - a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity. Votes: 0

We must always take risks. That is our destiny. Votes: 0

We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far as we do evil or good, we are human: and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least we exist. Votes: 0

But the Church cannot be, in any political sense, either conservative or liberal, or revolutionary. Conservatism is too often conservation of the wrong things: liberalism a relaxation of discipline; revolution a denial of the permanent things. Votes: 0

Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to. Votes: 0

The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together. Votes: 0

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion, Votes: 0

Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter. Old men ought to be explorers Here or there does not matter We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and the empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise. Votes: 0

Between the desire And the spasm, Between the potency And the existence, Between the essence And the descent, Falls the Shadow. Votes: 0

I hate university towns and university people, who are the same everywhere, with pregnant wives, sprawling children, many books and hideous pictures on the walls ... Oxford is very pretty, but I don't like to be dead. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

And all shall be well and/ All manner of thing shall be well/ By the purification of the motive/ In the ground of our beseeching Votes: 0

Light Light The visible reminder of Invisible Light. Votes: 0

Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. Votes: 0

A philosophy can and must be worked out with the greatest rigour and discipline in the details, but can ultimately be founded on nothing but faith: and this is the reason, I suspect, why the novelties in philosophy are only in elaboration, and never in fundamentals. Votes: 0

Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage we did not take, towards the door we never opened, into the rose garden. Votes: 0

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 Votes: 0

In my end is my beginning Votes: 0

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world Votes: 0

Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow, but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment Votes: 0

When we read of human beings behaving in certain ways, with the approval of the author, who gives his benediction to this behavior by his attitude towards the result of the behavior arranged by himself, we can be influenced towards behaving in the sa Votes: 0

He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sitsAs a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire. Votes: 0

What is this self inside us, this silent observer, Severe and speechless critic, who can terrorize usAnd urge us to futile activity,And in the end, Judge us still more severely,For the errors into which his own reproaches drove us? Votes: 0

So I find words I never thought to speakIn streets I never thought I should revisitWhen I left my body on a distant shore. Votes: 0

It's not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them. Votes: 0

Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance Votes: 0

The dripping blood our only drink,The bloody flesh our only food:In spite of which we like to thinkThat we are sound, substantial flesh and blood--Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good. Votes: 0

Do I dare Disturb the universe? Votes: 0

Not the intense momentIsolated, with no before and after,But a lifetime burning in every moment. Votes: 0

They constantly try to escapeFrom the darkness outside and withinBy dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.But the man that is shall shadowThe man that pretends to be. Votes: 0

Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird meaning death Votes: 0

Oxford is very pretty, but I don't like to be dead. Votes: 0

A condition of complete simplicity(Costing not less than everything) Votes: 0

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? Votes: 0

Someone said, 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.' Precisely, and they are that which we know. Votes: 0

Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough. Votes: 0

Though you forget the way to the Temple,There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not. You shall not deny the Stranger. Votes: 0

Truth on our level is a different thing from truth for the jellyfish. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time. Votes: 0

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in infomation~? Votes: 0

The only wisdom we can hope to acquireIs the wisdom of humility: humility is endless. Votes: 0

I don't know much about gods, but I think the river is a strong, brown god Votes: 0

music heard so deeplyThat it is not heard at all, butyou are the musicWhile the music lasts. Votes: 0

In my end is my beginning. Votes: 0

Probably, indeed, the larger part of the labor of an author composing his work is critical labor; the labor of sifting, combining, constructing, expunging, correcting, testing. This frightful toil is as much critical as creative. Votes: 0

Webster was much possessed by death And saw the skull beneath the skin. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

What is this self-inside us, this silent observer, severe and speechless critic, who can terrorize us, and urge us onto futile activity, and in the end, judge us still more severely for the errors into which his own reproaches drove us? Votes: 0

the ordinary man's experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary. [He] falls in love or reads Spinoza, and these two experiences have nothing to do with each other, or with the noise of the typewriter, or the smell of cooking; in the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming new wholes Votes: 0

The difference between being an elder statesman And posing successfully as an elder statesman Is practically negligible. Votes: 0

A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest. Votes: 0

But at my back from time to time I hear The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter And on her daughter They wash their feet in soda water. Votes: 0

Signs are taken for wonders. / 'We would see a sign!' / The word within a word, unable to speak a word, / Swaddled with darkness. Votes: 0

The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason. Votes: 0

You will find that you survive humiliation. And that's an experience of incalculable value. Votes: 0

For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts Votes: 0

A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments. Votes: 0

I suspect that in our loathing of totalitarianism, there is infused a good deal of admiration for its efficiency. Votes: 0

A tradition without intelligence is not worth having. Votes: 0

Before a cat will condescend to treat you as a trusted friend, some little token of esteem is needed, like a dish of cream. Votes: 0

Accident is design / And design is accident / In a cloud of unknowing. Votes: 0

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god-sullen, untamed and intractable. Votes: 0

A thousand policemen directing traffic cannot tell you why you come or where you go. Votes: 0

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life. Votes: 0

In a mind charged with an eager purpose and an unfinished vindictiveness, there is no room for new feelings. Votes: 0

When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city? Do you huddle close together because you love each other?" What will you answer? "We all dwell together To make money from each other"? or "This is a community"? Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions. Votes: 0

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still Votes: 0

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; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The soul is so far from being a monad that we have not only to interpret other souls to ourself but to interpret ourself to ourself. Votes: 0

There is no absolute point of view from which real and ideal can be finally separated and labelled. Votes: 0

The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Votes: 0

This love is silent. Votes: 0

...the still point in a turning world. Votes: 0

A book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it. Votes: 0

A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter. Votes: 0

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Votes: 0

A good deal of confusion could be avoided, if we refrained from setting before the group, what can be the aim only of the individual; and before society as a whole, what can be the aim only of the group. Votes: 0

A good half of the effort of understanding what the Indian philosophers were after - and their subtleties make most of the great European philosophers look like schoolboys. Votes: 0

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Votes: 0

A national culture, if it is to flourish, should be a constellation of cultures, the constitutes of which, benefiting each other, benefit the whole. Votes: 0

A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give. Votes: 0

A woman drew her long black hair out tight, And fiddled whisper music on those strings, And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings, And crawled head downward down a blackened wall. Votes: 0

A wrong attitude toward nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude toward God. Votes: 0

A wrong attitude towards nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God, and that the consequence is an inevitable doom. For a long enough time we have believed in nothing but the values arising in a mechanized, commercialized, urbanized way of life: it would be as well for us to face the permanent conditions upon which God allows us to live upon this planet. Votes: 0

…Forgive us, O Lord, we acknowledge ourselves as type of the common man, Of the men and women who shut the door and sit by the fire; Who fear the blessing of God, the loneliness of the night of God, the surrender required, the deprivation inflicted; Who fear the injustice of men less than the justice of God; Who fear the hand at the window, the fire in the thatch, the fist in the tavern, the push into the canal, Less than we fear the love of God. Votes: 0

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Votes: 0

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions Guides us by vanities. Votes: 0

Again I must remind you that a dog's a dog-a cat's a cat. Votes: 0

All art emulates the condition of ritual. That is what it comes from and to that it must always return for nourishment. Votes: 0

All cases are unique and very similar to others. Votes: 0

All dash to and fro in motor cars. Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere. Votes: 0

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance. Votes: 0

All significant truths are private truths. As they become public they cease to become truths; they become facts, or at best, part of the public character; or at worst, catchwords. Votes: 0

All time is eternal, moving inexorably toward an end which we believe is a result of our actions, but over which our control is mere illusion. Votes: 0

All time is unreedemable. Votes: 0

Although I do not hope to turn again Although I do not hope Although I do not hope to turn Votes: 0

Ambition fortifies the will of man to become ruler over other men: it operates with deception, cajolery, and violence, it is the action of impurity upon impurity. Votes: 0

Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think Votes: 0

And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you I will show you fear in a handful of dust Votes: 0

And indeed there will be time for the yellow smoke that slides along the street rubbing its back upon the window-panes; there will be time , there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; there will be time to murder and create, and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate; time for you and time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of toast and tea. Votes: 0

And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair. Votes: 0

And indeed there will be time to wonder, 'Do I dare?', and 'Do I dare? Votes: 0

and now you live dispersed on ribbon roads, And no man knows or cares who is his neighbor Unless his neighbor makes too much disturbance, But all dash to and fro in motor cars, Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere. Votes: 0

And right action is freedom From past and future also. Votes: 0

And the end and the beginning where always there, before the beginning and after the end. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

And through the spaces of the dark Midnight shakes the memory As a madman shakes a dead geranium. Votes: 0

And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. Votes: 0

And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Votes: 0

And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor - And this, and so much more? - Votes: 0

Anecdote: It is by no means self-evident that human beings are most real when most violently excited; violent physical passions do not in themselves differentiate men from each other, but rather tend to reduce them to the same state. Votes: 0

Any religion is forever in danger of petrifaction into mere ritual and habit, though ritual and habit be essential to religion. Votes: 0

Art is the escape from personality. Votes: 0

Art serves us best precisely at that point where it can shift our sense of what is possible, when we know more than we knew before, when we feel we have - by some manner of a leap - encountered the truth. That, by the logic of art, is always worth the pain. Votes: 0

As a rule, with me an unfinished [idea] is a thing that might as well be rubbed out. It's better, if there's something good in it that I might make use of elsewhere, to leave it at the back of my mind than on paper in a drawer. If I leave it in a drawer it remains the same thing but if it's in the memory it becomes transformed into something else. Votes: 0

As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. Votes: 0

As we grow older, the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated of dead and living. Votes: 0

Ash on an old man's sleeve / Is all the ash the burnt roses leave, / Dust in the air suspended / Marks the place where a story ended. Votes: 0

At the beach - time you enjoyed wasting, is not wasted. Votes: 0

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not all it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. Votes: 0

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is. Votes: 0

At the still point, there the dance is. Votes: 0

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives. Votes: 0

Bad poets imitate, good poets steal. Votes: 0

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 aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign? Votes: 0

Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place... Votes: 0

Because I know that time is always time and place is always place and only place. And what is actual is actual only for one time. And only for one place. I rejoice that things are as they are. Votes: 0

Before a Cat will condescend To treat you as a trusted friend, Some little token of esteem Is needed, like a dish of cream; And you might now and then supply Some caviare, or Strassburg Pie, Some potted grouse, or salmon paste — He's sure to have his personal taste. (I know a Cat, who makes a habit Of eating nothing else but rabbit, And when he's finished, licks his paws So's not to waste the onion sauce.) A Cat's entitled to expect These evidences of respect. And so in time you reach your aim, And finally call him by his name. Votes: 0

Between the conception and the creation, between the emotion and the response, Falls the shadow. Votes: 0

Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow Votes: 0

Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. Votes: 0

Between the vision and the act lies the shadow. Votes: 0

But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where. Votes: 0

But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before; though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where. Men have left God not for gods, they say, but for no gods; and this has never happened before. That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason, and the money, and power, and what they call life, or race, or dialect.The church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned, what have we to do but stand with empty hands and palms upturned in an age which advances progressively backwards? Votes: 0

But what have I, but what have I, my friend, To give you, what can you receive from me? Only the friendship and the sympathy Of one about to reach her journey's end. Votes: 0

Can we only love Something created in our own imaginations? Votes: 0

Can we only love Something created in our own imaginations? Are we all in fact unloving and unloveable? Then one is alone, and if one is alone Then lover and beloved are equally unreal And the dreamer is no more real than his dreams. Votes: 0

Cats must have three names-an everyday name, such as Peter; a more particular, dignified name, such as Quaxo, Bombalurina, or Jellylorum; and, thirdly, the name the cat thinks up for himself, his deep and inscrutable singular Name. Votes: 0

Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern French prose. The typewriter makes for lucidity, but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety. Votes: 0

Culture is the one thing that we cannot deliberately aim at. It is the product of a variety of more or less harmonious activities, each pursued for its own sake. Votes: 0

Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third. Votes: 0

Dayodhuam: I have heard the key Turn in the door once and turn once only We think of the key, each in his prison Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison. Votes: 0

Dear Mother, I am getting on nicely in my work at the bank, and like it ... I want to find out something about the science of money while I am at it; it is an extraordinarily interesting subject ... Votes: 0

Death has a hundred hands and walks by a thousand ways. Votes: 0

Desire itself is movement Not in itself desirable; Love is itself unmoving, Only the cause and end of movement, Timeless, and undesiring Except in the aspect of time Caught in the form of limitation Between un-being and being. Votes: 0

Destiny ... a word which means more than we can find any definitions for. It is a word which can have no meaning in a mechanical universe: if that which is wound up must run down, what destiny is there in that? Destiny is not necessitarianism, and it is not caprice: it is something essentially meaningful. Each man has his destiny, though some men are undoubtedly "men of destiny" in a sense in which most men are not. Votes: 0

Destiny waits in the hand of God, not in the hands of statesmen. Votes: 0

Do not let me hear Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly, Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession, Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God. The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless. Votes: 0

Each way means loneliness -- and communion. Votes: 0

Envy is everywhere. Who is without envy? And most people Are unaware or unashamed of being envious. Votes: 0

Every end is a beginning...And every beginning is an end. Votes: 0

Every moment is a fresh beginning. Votes: 0

Every moment is a new and shocking transvaluation of all we have ever been. Votes: 0

Every nation, every race, has not only its own creative, but its own critical turn of mind; and is even more oblivious of the shortcomings and limitations of its critical habits than of those of its creative genius. Votes: 0

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, every poem an epitaph. Votes: 0

Everyone gets the experience. Some get the lesson. Votes: 0

Everyone's alone - or so it seems to me. They make noises, and think they are talking to each other; They make faces, and think they understand each other. And I'm sure they don't. Is that a delusion? Votes: 0

Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past Into different lives, or into any future; You are not the same people who left that station Or who will arrive at any terminus, While the narrowing rails slide together behind you. Votes: 0

Finding a way to live the simple life is one of life's supreme complications. Votes: 0

For every life and every act consequence of good and evil can be shown and as in time results of many deeds are blended so good and evil in the end become confounded. Votes: 0

For he will do As he do do And there's no doing anything about it! Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

For you know only a heap of broken images Votes: 0

From a purely external point of view there is no will; and to find will in any phenomenon requires a certain empathy; we observe aman's actions and place ourselves partly but not wholly in his position; or we act, and place ourselves partly in the position of an outsider. Votes: 0

Genuine blasphemy, genuine in spirit and not purely verbal, is the product of partial belief, and is as impossible to the complete atheist as to the perfect Christian. Votes: 0

Gin and drugs, dear lady, gin and drugs. Votes: 0

Good poets borrow, great poets steal Votes: 0

Gradually we come to admit that Shakespeare understands a greater extent and variety of human life than Dante; but that Dante understands deeper degrees of degradation and higher degrees of exaltation. Votes: 0

He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it Votes: 0

He is haunted by a demon, a demon against which he feels powerless, because in its first manifestation it has no face, no name, nothing; and the words, the poem he makes, are a kind of exorcism of this demon. Votes: 0

He laughed like an irresponsible foetus. Votes: 0

He who was living is now dead We who were living are now dying With a little patience. Votes: 0

Hell is oneself, hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projections. There is nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to. One is always alone. Votes: 0

Here between the hither and the farther shore While time is withdrawn, consider the future And the past with an equal mind. Votes: 0

Here I am, an old man in a dry month, Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. Votes: 0

His laughter tinkled among the teacups. Votes: 0

History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors and issues. Votes: 0

History may be servitude. History may be freedom. See, now they vanish. The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them, to become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern. Votes: 0

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicatied Of dead and living, Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before and after, But a lifetime burning in every moment . . . Votes: 0

Honest criticism and sensible appreciation are directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry. Votes: 0

Human kind cannot bear much reality. Votes: 0

Humankind cannot stand reality. Votes: 0

Humankind can't stand too much reality. Votes: 0

Humility is the most difficult of all virtues to achieve; nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of self. Votes: 0

Humor is also a way of saying something serious. Votes: 0

Hungry Hatred, will not strive against intelligence self-interest. Votes: 0

Hurry up, please, its time. Votes: 0

I am glad you have a Cat, but I do not believe it is So remarkable a cat as My Cat. Votes: 0

I am glad you have a Cat, but I do not believe it is So remarkable a cat as My Cat. My Cat is a Lilliecat Hubvously. What a lilliecat it is. There never was such a Lilliecat. Its Name is JELLYORUM and its one Idea is to be Usefull!! Votes: 0

I am moved by fancies that are curled, around these images and cling, the notion of some infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing. Votes: 0

I am no prophet-and here's no great matter. Votes: 0

I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me, I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me. Votes: 0

I believe the moment of birth Is when we have knowledge of death I believe the season of birth Is the season of sacrifice. Votes: 0

I can connect Nothing with nothing Votes: 0

I confess . . . that I am not myself very much concerned with the question of influence, or with those publicists who have impressed their names upon the public by catching the morning tide and rowing very vast in the direction in which the current was flowing; but rather that there should always be a few writers preoccupied in penetrating to the core of the matter, in trying to arrive at the truth and to set it forth, without too much hope, without ambition to alter the immediate course of affairs, and without being downcast or defeated when nothing appears to ensue. Votes: 0

I do not approve the extermination of the enemy; the policy of exterminating or, as it is barbarously said, liquidating enemies, is one of the most alarming developments of modern war and peace, from the point of view of those who desire the survival Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river is a strong brown god-sullen, untamed and intractable, Patient to some degree, at first recognized as a frontier; Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce; Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges. The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten By the dwellers in cities-ever, however, implacable. Keeping his seasons, and rages, destroyer, reminder Of what men choose to forget. Unhonored, unpropitiated By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting. Votes: 0

I gotta use words to talk to you. Votes: 0

I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Votes: 0

I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;Her coat is one of the tabby kind,with tiger stripes and lepard spots. Votes: 0

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. Votes: 0

I journeyed to London, to the timekept City, Where the River flows, with foreign flotations. There I was told: we have too many churches, And too few chop-houses. Votes: 0

I learn a great deal by merely observing you, and letting you talk as long as you please, and taking note of what you do not say. Votes: 0

I love reading another reader's list of favorites. Even when I find I do not share their tastes or predilections, I am provoked to compare, contrast, and contradict. It is a most healthy exercise, and one altogether fruitful. Votes: 0

I must tell you that I should really like to think there's something wrong with me- Because, if there isn't, then there's something wrong with the world itself-and that's much more frightening! That would be terrible. So I'd rather believe there is something wrong with me, that could be put right. Votes: 0

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. Votes: 0

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you Which shall be the darkness of God. . . . So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. Votes: 0

I say to you: Make perfect your will. / I say: take no thought of the harvest, / But only of proper sowing. Votes: 0

I shall not want Honor in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney And have talk with Coriolanus And other heroes of that kidney. Votes: 0

I think it was rather an advantage not having any living poets in England or America in whom one took any particular interest. I don't know what it would be like but I think it would be a rather troublesome distraction to have such a lot of dominating presences, as you call them, about. Fortunately we weren't bothered by each other. Votes: 0

I think we are in rats' alley Where the dead men lost their bones. Votes: 0

I was too slow a mover to be a boxer. It was much easier to be a poet. Votes: 0

i will show you fear in a handful of dust." t.s. eliot we don't actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace. Votes: 0

I would meet you upon this honestly. I that was near your heart was removed therefrom To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition. I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it Since what is kept must be adulterated? I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch: How should I use them for your closer contact? Votes: 0

If all time is eternally present, all time is unredeemable Votes: 0

If one has to earn a living, therefore, the safest occupation is that most remote from the arts. Votes: 0

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in the darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the center of the silent Word. Oh my people, what have I done unto thee. Where shall the word be found, where shall the word Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence Votes: 0

If time and space, as sages say, Are things which cannot be, The sun which does not feel decay No greater is than we. So why, Love, should we ever pray To live a century? The butterfly that lives a day Has lived eternity. Votes: 0

If we all were judged according to the consequences Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention And beyond our limited understanding Of ourselves and others, we should all be condemned. Votes: 0

If we are moved by a poem, it has meant something, perhaps something important, to us; if we are not moved, then it is, as poetry, meaningless. Votes: 0

If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. Votes: 0

If you do not push the boundaries, you will never know where they are. Votes: 0

If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you. Votes: 0

If you start with a bang, you won't end with a whimper. Votes: 0

If you want it you must obtain it by great labor. Votes: 0

If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God), you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin. Votes: 0

In a world of fugitives the one who stays home will seem to be running away Votes: 0

In a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away. Votes: 0

In life there is not time to grieve long. Votes: 0

In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth Which is already flesh, fur and faeces, Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf. Votes: 0

In order to arrive at what you are not, you must go through the way in which you are not. Votes: 0

In order to possess what you do not possess, you must go by the way of dispossession. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

In the end is my beginning. Votes: 0

In the last few years everything I'd done up to sixty or so has seemed very childish. Votes: 0

In the life of one man, never The same time returns. Votes: 0

In the mountains, there you feel free. Votes: 0

In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo. Votes: 0

It has frequently been said that we never desire what we think absolutely inapprehensible: it is however true that some of our sharpest agonies are those in which the object of desire is regarded as both possible and imaginary. Votes: 0

It is a test (a positive test, I do not assert that it is always valid negatively), that genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. Votes: 0

It is generally a feminine eye that first detects the moral deficiencies hidden under the 'dear deceit' of beauty. Votes: 0

It is impossible to design a system so perfect that no one needs to be good. Votes: 0

It is impossible to say just what I mean! Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

It is not enough to understand what we ought to be, unless we know what we are; and we do not understand what we are, unless we know what we ought to be. Votes: 0

It is not necessarily those lands which are the most fertile or most favored in climate that seem to me the happiest, but those in which a long struggle of adaptation between man and his environment has brought out the best qualities of both. Votes: 0

It is self-evident that St. Louis affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is something in having passed one's childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in Boston, or New York, or London. Votes: 0

It seems just possible that a poem might happen to a very young man: but a poem is not poetry -That is a life. Votes: 0

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... Votes: 0

It's harder to confess the sin that no one believes in Than the crime that everyone can appreciate. For the crime is in relation to the law And the sin is in relation to the sinner. Votes: 0

I've been born, and once is enough. Votes: 0

Justice itself tends to be corrupted by political passion. Votes: 0

Lady of silences Calm and distressed Torn and most whole Rose of memory Rose of forgetfulness Exhausted and life-giving Worried reposeful The single Rose Is now the Garden Where all loves end Terminate torment Of love unsatisfied The greater torment Of love satisfied End of the endless Journey to no end Conclusion of all that Is inconclusible Speech without word and Word of no speech Grace to the Mother For the Garden Where all love ends. Votes: 0

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Votes: 0

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats 5 Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10 Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. Votes: 0

life is long between the desire and the spasm. Votes: 0

Love compels cruelty To those who do not understand love. Votes: 0

Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter. Votes: 0

Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. Votes: 0

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity, there never was a cat of such deceitfulness and sauvity. Votes: 0

Maturing as a poet means maturing as the whole man, experiencing new emotions appropriate to one's age, and with the same intensity as the emotions of youth. Votes: 0

Mediocre writers borrow; great writers steal. Votes: 0

Men dislike being awakened from their death in life. Votes: 0

Men have left GOD not for other gods, they say, but for no God; and this has never happened before. Votes: 0

Men live by forgetting and woman live on memories. Votes: 0

Men tighten the knot of confusion Into perfect misunderstanding. Votes: 0

Most contemporary novels are not really "written." They obtain what reality they have largely from an accurate rendering of the noises that human beings currently make in their daily simple needs of communication; and what part of a novel is not composed of these noises consists of a prose which is no more alive than that of a competent newspaper writer or government official. A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel-reader is not prepared to give. Votes: 0

Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions. Votes: 0

Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important. Votes: 0

My greatest trouble is getting the curtain up and down. Votes: 0

My life is light, waiting for the death wind, Like a feather on the back of my hand. Votes: 0

My mind may be American but my heart is British. Votes: 0

My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. 'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. 'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? 'I never know what you are thinking. Think. Votes: 0

Neither way is better. / Both ways are necessary. / It is also necessary / To make a choice between them. Votes: 0

Never commit yourself to a cheese without having first examined it. Votes: 0

No artist produces great art by a deliberate attempt to express his own personality. Votes: 0

No generation is interested in art in quite the same way as any other; each generation, like each individual, brings to the contemplation of art its own categories of appreciation, makes its own demands upon art, and has its own uses for art. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

No place of grace for those who avoid the Face. No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the Voice. Votes: 0

No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. Votes: 0

No scheme for a change of society can be made to appear immediately palatable, except by falsehood, until society has become so desperate that it will accept any change. Votes: 0

No university ought to be merely a national institution....The universities should have their common ideals, they should have their common obligations toward each other. They should be independent of the governments of the countries in which they are situated. They should not be institutions for the training of an efficient bureaucracy, or for equipping scientists to get the better of foreign scientists; they should stand for the preservation of learning, for the pursuit of truth, and in so far as men are capable of it, the attainment of wisdom.... Votes: 0

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. Votes: 0

not fare well, but fare forward Votes: 0

Not less of love, but expanding Of love beyond desire, and so liberation From the Future as well as the past. Votes: 0

Not only every great poet, but every genuine, but lesser poet, fulfils once for all some possibility of language, and so leaves one possibility less for his successors. Votes: 0

Nothing pleases people more than to go on thinking what they have always thought, and at the same time imagine that they are thinking something new and daring: it combines the advantage of security and the delight of adventure. Votes: 0

Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in her fingers while she talks. "Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands"; (slowly twisting the lilac stalks) "You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see." I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea. Votes: 0

Now that the lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room Votes: 0

O father, father Gone from us, lost to us, The church lies bereft, Alone, Desecrated, desolated. And the heathen shall build On the ruins Their world without God. I see it. I see it. Votes: 0

Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other Who think the same thoughts without need of speech Votes: 0

Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'/Let us go and make our visit. Votes: 0

One of the surest tests of the superiority or inferiority of a poet is the way in which a poet borrows. 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. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest. Votes: 0

One starts an action simply because one must do something. Votes: 0

One thing you cannot know: The sudden extinction of every alternative, The unexpected crash of the iron cataract. You do not know what hope is, until you have lost it. You only know what it is not to hope: You do not know what it is to have hope taken from you Or to fling it away, to join the legion of the hopeless Unrecognized by other men, though sometimes by each other. Votes: 0

Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it Votes: 0

Only through time time is conquered Votes: 0

Our emotions Are only "incidents" In the effort to keep day and night together. Votes: 0

Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature. Votes: 0

Our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves, and of our visible, sensible world. Votes: 0

Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks Faced by the snarled and yelping seas. Votes: 0

Past art is subject to change. Votes: 0

People are only influenced in the direction in which they want to go, and influence consists largely in making them conscious of their wishes to proceed in that direction. Votes: 0

People exercise an unconscious selection in being influenced. Votes: 0

People find a way in which they can say something. Votes: 0

People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events. Votes: 0

Philosophy: a purple bullfinch in a lilac tree. Votes: 0

Poetry is not an assertion of truth, but the making of that truth more fully real to us. Votes: 0

Poets in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult...The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into its meaning. Votes: 0

Quick now, here, now, always- A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one. Votes: 0

Redeem the time. Redeem the unread vision of a higher dream... Votes: 0

Religion, as distinguished from modern paganism, implies a life in conformity with nature. It may be observed that the natural life and the supernatural life have a conformity to each other which neither has with the mechanistic life...A wrong attitude towards nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God...[We should] struggle to recover the sense of relation to nature and to God. Votes: 0

Sand. Everywhere. In the bed, in the shower, all over the floor. Grrrrr. Votes: 0

Sensibility alters from generation to generation in everybody, whether we will or no; but expression is only altered by a man of genius. Votes: 0

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? Votes: 0

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet--and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. Votes: 0

Sister, mother And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea, Suffer me not to be separated And let my cry come unto Thee. Votes: 0

So first, your memory I'll jog, And say: A CAT IS NOT A DOG Votes: 0

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair- Lean on a garden urn- Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair. Votes: 0

Survival is your strength not your shame. Votes: 0

Talent imitates, but genius steals. Votes: 0

Talent imitates, genius steals. Votes: 0

Teach us to care and not to care Votes: 0

Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Votes: 0

That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all. Votes: 0

That is the worst moment, when you feel you have lost / The desires for all that was most desirable, / Before you are contented with what you can desire; / Before you know what is left to be desired; / And you go on wishing that you could desire / What desire has left behind. Votes: 0

That meddling in other people's affairs...formerly conducted by the most discreet intrigue is now openly advocated under the name of intervention. Votes: 0

That was my way of putting it-not very satisfactory: A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion, Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle With words and meanings. Votes: 0

The chief danger about Paris is that it is such a strong stimulant. Votes: 0

The Church must be forever building, for it is forever decaying within and attacked from without. Votes: 0

The circle of our understanding is a very restricted area. Votes: 0

The Civil War is not ended: I question whether any serious civil war ever does end. Votes: 0

The darkness declares the glory of the light. Votes: 0

The definition of hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing. Votes: 0

The destination cannot be described; / You will know very little until you get there; / You will journey blind. Votes: 0

The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error. The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre- To be redeemed from fire by fire. Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire. Votes: 0

The dream crossed twilight between birth and dying. Votes: 0

The eastern light our spires touch at morning, The light that slants upon our western doors at evening, The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight, Moon light and star light, owl and moth light, Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade. O Light Invisible, we worship Thee! Votes: 0

The end is in the beginning. Votes: 0

The end is where we start from. Votes: 0

The endless cycle of idea and action, Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, All our ignorance brings us nearer to death, But nearness to death no nearer to God. 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 cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust. Votes: 0

The fool,fixed in his folly,may think He can turn the wheel on which he turns. Votes: 0

The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn. Votes: 0

The great ages did not contain the best talent, they wasted less. Votes: 0

The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief. Votes: 0

The greatness of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards. Votes: 0

The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation. Votes: 0

The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is incarnation. Here the impossible union of spheres of existence is actual. Here the past and future are conquered and reconciled. Votes: 0

The hippopotamus's day Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts; God works in a mysterious way- The Church can sleep and feed at once. Votes: 0

The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of literature from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. Votes: 0

The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence Votes: 0

The immature poet imitates, the mature poet plagiarizes, Votes: 0

The journey, Not the destination matters... Votes: 0

The lot of man is ceaseless labor, Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder. Votes: 0

The majority of mankind is lazyminded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith. Votes: 0

The majority of poems one outgrows and outlives, as one outgrows and outlives the majority of human passions. Votes: 0

The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates. Votes: 0

The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible. Votes: 0

The naming of cats is a difficult matter Votes: 0

The naming of cats is a difficult matter. It isn't just one of your holiday games. You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter. When I tell you a cat must have three different names... Votes: 0

The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre - To be redeemed from fire by fire. Votes: 0

The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless. The houses are all gone under the sea. The dancers are all gone under the hill. Votes: 0

The overwhelming pressure of mediocrity, sluggish and indomitable as a glacier, will mitigate the most violent, and depress the most exalted revolution. Votes: 0

The past and future / Are conquered, and reconciled. Votes: 0

The purpose of a Christian education would not be merely to make men and women pious Christians: a system which aimed too rigidly at this end alone would become only obscurantist. A Christian education must primarily teach people to be able to think in Christian categories. Votes: 0

The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink. Votes: 0

The rats are underneath the piles/ The Jew is underneath the lot. Votes: 0

The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely. Votes: 0

The river itself has no beginning or end. In its beginning, it is not yet the river; in the end it is no longer the river. What we call the headwaters is only a selection from among the innumerable sources which flow together to compose it. At what point in its course does the Mississippi become what the Mississippi means? Votes: 0

The role of art is not to express the personality but to overcome it. Votes: 0

The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat: If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse. If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat, If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house. If you set him on a mouse then he only wants a rat, If you set him on a rat then he'd rather chase a mouse. Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat - And there isn't any call for me to shout it: For he will do As he do do And there's no doing anything about it! Votes: 0

The Rum Turn Tugger is a terrible bore: When you let him in, then he wants to be out; He's always on the wrong side of every door, And as soon as he's at home, then he'd like to get about. Votes: 0

The sense of wellbeing! Its often with us When we are young, but then it's not noticed; And by the time one has grown to consciousness It comes less often. Votes: 0

The single Rose Is now the Garden Where all loves end Votes: 0

The soul of Man must quicken to creation. Votes: 0

The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Votes: 0

The work of creation is never without travail. Votes: 0

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap And seeing that it was a soft October night Curled once about the house, and fell asleep Votes: 0

The young feel tired at the end of an action, the old at the beginning. Votes: 0

There is no escape from metre; there is only mastery. Votes: 0

There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music. Votes: 0

There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not. Votes: 0

There is, it seems to us, At best, only a limited value In the knowledge derived from experience. Votes: 0

There will be time to murder and create. Votes: 0

There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet. Votes: 0

These are only hints an guesses... the rest is prayer, observance, discipline, thought, and action. Votes: 0

These fragments I have shored against my ruins Votes: 0

They don't understand what it is to be awake, / To be living on several planes at once / Though one cannot speak with several voices at once. Votes: 0

Think neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices are fathered by our heroism. Virtues are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree. Votes: 0

Think not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground. Votes: 0

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison. Votes: 0

This is one moment, / But know that another / Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy. Votes: 0

This is the feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling, invigorating every word. Votes: 0

Those who arrive at the end of the journey are not those who began. Votes: 0

Those who say they give the public what it wants begin by underestimating public taste and end by debauching it. Votes: 0

Those who talk of the bible as a monument of English prose are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity. Votes: 0

Thus with most careful devotion Thus with precise attention To detail, interfering preparation Of that which is already prepared Men lighten the knot of confusion Into perfect misunderstanding, Reflecting a pocket-torch of observation ... Votes: 0

Till Human voices wake us, and we drown. Votes: 0

Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. Votes: 0

Time past and time future allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time. Votes: 0

Time present and time past / are both perhaps present in time future. Votes: 0

Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. Votes: 0

To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not / You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. Votes: 0

To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. In order to possess what you do not possess You must go by the way of dispossession. In order to arrive at what you are not You must go through the way in which you are not. And what you do not know is the only thing you know And what you own is what you do not own And where you are is where you are not. Votes: 0

To become what you are not, behave as you do not. Votes: 0

To believe in the supernatural is not simply to believe that after living a successful, material, and fairly virtuous life here one will continue to exist in the best-possible substitute for this world, or that after living a starved and stunted life here one will be compensated with all the good things one has gone without: it is to believe that the supernatural is the greatest reality here and now. Votes: 0

To country people Cows are mild, And flee from any stick they throw; But I'm a timid town bred child, And all the cattle seem to know. Votes: 0

To each individual the world will take on a different connotation of meaning-the important lies in the desire to search for an answer. Votes: 0

To men of a certain type The suspicion that they are incapable of loving Is as disturbing to their self-esteem As, in cruder men, the fear of impotence. Votes: 0

Today, you're halfway to 100! Here's to optimism, whether it is realistic or not. Happy 50th birthday! Votes: 0

Tradition: how the vitality of the past enriches the life of the present. Votes: 0

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, Votes: 0

Turn things you've always wanted to do, into things you've done Votes: 0

Turning Wearily, as one would turn to nod goodbye to Rochefoucauld, If the street were time and he as the end of the street. Votes: 0

Uncorseted, her friendly bust Gives promise of pneumatic bliss. Votes: 0

Unreal friendship may turn to real But real friendship, once ended, cannot be mended Votes: 0

Upon the glazen shelves kept watch Matthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith The army of unalterable law. Votes: 0

War among men defiles this world. Votes: 0

We are being made aware that the organization of society on the principle of private profit, as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly. Votes: 0

We are not here to triumph by fighting, by strata gem, or by resistance, not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast and have conquered. We have only to conquer now, by suffering. This is the easier victory. Votes: 0

We ask only to be reassured About the noises in the cellar And the window that should not have been open Votes: 0

We can at least try to understand our own motives, passions, and prejudices, so as to be conscious of what we are doing when we apeal to those of others. This is very difficult, because our own prejudice and emotional bias always seems to us so rational. Votes: 0

We do not pass through the same door twice Or return to the door through which we did not pass Votes: 0

We fight to keep something alive rather than in the expectation that anything will triumph. Votes: 0

We had the experience but missed the meaning. And approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form. Votes: 0

We had the experience, but we missed the meaning. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

We learn what poetry is - if we ever learn - by reading it. Votes: 0

We might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism. Votes: 0

We must believe that "emotion recollected in tranquillity" is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not "recollected" and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is "tranquil" only in that it is a passive attending upon the event. Votes: 0

We must learn to suffer more. Votes: 0

We read many books, because we cannot know enough people. Votes: 0

We see the light but see not whence it comes. O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee! Votes: 0

We shall not cease from exploration Votes: 0

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. Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Votes: 0

We shall not cease from exploring, And the end of our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Votes: 0

We should not confuse information with knowledge. Votes: 0

We took up our positions, in obedience to instructions. Votes: 0

Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair- Votes: 0

What a poem means is as much what it means to others as what it means to the author; and indeed, in the course of time a poet may become merely reader in respect to his own works, forgetting his original meaning. Votes: 0

What have we given? My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment's surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed. Votes: 0

What is true, is true only for one time and only for one place. Votes: 0

What profession is more trying than that of author? After you finish a piece of work it only seems good to you for a few weeks; or if it seems good at all you are convinced that it is the last you will be able to write; and if it seems bad you wonder whether everything you have done isn't poor stuff really; and it is one kind of agony while you are writing, and another kind when you aren't. Votes: 0

What we know of other people's only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. Votes: 0

Whatever you do, don't whimper, but take the consequences. Votes: 0

Whatever you think, be sure it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that is what you feel. Votes: 0

When a Cat adopts you there is nothing to be done about it except to put up with it until the wind changes. Votes: 0

When a great poet has lived, certain things have been done once for all, and cannot be achieved again. Votes: 0

When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experience ?in the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming new wholes. Votes: 0

When comparing works of art, it is important that the art itself, and not the artists, be considered. Votes: 0

When forced to work within a strict framework, the imagination is taxed to its utmost and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom, the work is likely to sprawl. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

When oxygen and sulphur dioxide are mixed in the presence of a filiament of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. This combination takes place only if the platinum is present; nevertheless the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected: has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. Votes: 0

When the gods know that a god hath fallen, With this kindly feeling They do encourage him-- Be thou a god again and again. Votes: 0

When the whole world is running headlong towards the precipice, one who walks in the opposite direction is looked at as being crazy. Votes: 0

When war is not just it is subsequently justified; so it becomes many things. In reality, an unjust war is merely piracy. It consists of piracy, ego and, more than anything, money. War is our century's prostitution. Votes: 0

Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair. Votes: 0

Where is all the knowledge we lost with information? Votes: 0

Where is the Life we lost in living? Votes: 0

Where shall the word be found, where will the word / Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence. Votes: 0

Where there is no temple there shall be no homes. Votes: 0

Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded I do not know whether a man or a woman -But who is that on the other side of you? Votes: 0

Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her laws? She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they would forget. Votes: 0

With a poem you can say 'I got my feeling into words for myself. I now have the equivalent in words for that much of what I have felt.' Votes: 0

With Cats, some say, one rule is true: Don't speak till you are spoken to. Myself, I do not hold with that — I say, you should ad-dress a Cat. But always keep in mind that he Resents familiarity. I bow, and taking off my hat, Ad-dress him in this form: O Cat! But if he is the Cat next door, Whom I have often met before (He comes to see me in my flat) I greet him with an oopsa Cat! I think I've heard them call him James — But we've not got so far as names. Votes: 0

With cats, some say, one rule is true: Don't speak till you are spoken to. Votes: 0

With out some kind of god, man is not very intresting Votes: 0

Words move, music moves Only in time; but that which is only living Can only die. Words, after speech, reach Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern, Can words or music reach The stillness... Votes: 0

Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still. Votes: 0

Words strain, crack, and sometime break, under the burden. Votes: 0

Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question Votes: 0

Writing every day is a way of keeping the engine running, and then something good may come out of it. Votes: 0

Yeats was the greatest poet of our times . . . certainly the greatest in this language, and so far as I am able to judge, in any language. Votes: 0

Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall My buried life, and Paris in the spring, I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world To be wonderful and youthful afterall Votes: 0

You can evade life, but you can not evade Death. Votes: 0

You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends, And how, how rare and strange it is, to find In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends, (For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind! How keen you are!) To find a friend who has these qualities, Who has, and gives Those qualities upon which friendship lives. How much it means that I say this to you- Without these friendships-life, what cauchemar! Votes: 0

You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; They called me the hyacinth girl.' —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. Od' und leer das Meer. Votes: 0

You have learned enough to see that cats are much like you and me. Votes: 0

You have to risk going too far to discover just how far you can really go. Votes: 0

You must not on any account give me credit for being penetrating. I have impressed people that way before, and the result is always disaster. Votes: 0