The quotations of

T. S. Eliot

US-British poet

1888–1965

49 quotes, most often on Poetry, Life & Death and Courage. Part of the Writers and Poets collections.

The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.
- Morality
It’s strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words.
- Love
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
Preface to Transit of Venus: Poems by Harry Crosby (1931)
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
“Philip Massinger”, a biographical essay, in The Sacred Wood (1920)
- Poetry
We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.
- Religion
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.
New York Post (Sept 22, 1963)
- Television
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.
Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919), Part II
- Poetry
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.”
- Children
Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.
- Art
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
“Dante” (1929), in Selected Essays (1932), p. 238
- Poetry
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
Four Quartets (1943), East Coker (1940), V
- Success
Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature.
- Reading
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.
- Poetry
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.
- Poetry
If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?

Often credited to T. S. Eliot

Quotes often credited to T. S. Eliot that were said or written by someone else.

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