T. S. Eliot
FameRank: 8

"Thomas Stearns Eliot" Order of Merit/OM better known as "T. S. Eliot" was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and "one of the twentieth century's major poets." He was born in St. Louis, Missouri to an old Yankee family. He emigrated to England in 1914 (at age 25), settling, working and marrying there. He was eventually naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39, renouncing his American citizenship.

Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist poetry in English/Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (poem)/Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four Quartets (1945). He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry."

If you enjoy these quotes, be sure to check out other famous poets! More T. S. Eliot on Wikipedia.

Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.

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.

Human kind cannot bear much reality.

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

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

Humor is also a way of saying something serious.

We shall never 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.

Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow.

We shall not cease from our exploration, and at the end of all our exploring, we shall arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

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.

In a minute there is time for decision and revisions that a minute will reverse.

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.

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

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.

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

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow.

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.