T.S. Eliot Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. 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 Waste Land and Other Poems

2. Humor is also a way of saying something serious.

3. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. The Sacred Wood

4. Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.

5. The only wisdom we can hope to acquireIs the wisdom of humility: humility is endless. Four Quartets

6. Truth on our level is a different thing from truth for the jellyfish. Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F.H. Bradley

7. Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The Rock

8. Although I do not hope to turn againAlthough I do not hopeAlthough I do not hope to turn The Waste Land and Other Poems

9. 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? - The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems

10. April is the cruelest month, breedinglilacs out of the dead land, mixingmemory and desire, stirringdull roots with spring rain. The Waste Land

11. 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.

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

13. Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

14. Honest criticism and sensible appreciation are directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry. Collected Poems, 1909-1962

15. I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones. The Waste Land

16. 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 Sacred Wood

17. Let us go then, you and I,When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherized upon a table.Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,The muttering retreatsOf restless nights in one-night cheap hotelsAnd sawdust restaurants with oyster shells:Streets that follow like a tedious argumentOf insidious intentTo lead you to an overwhelming question...Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"Let us go and make our visit.We have lingered in the chambers of the seaBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brownTill human voices wake us, and we drown. The Fault in Our Stars

18. LightLightThe visible reminder of Invisible Light.

19. 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. The Waste Land

20. 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. The Sacred Wood

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

22. 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 emotion know what it means to want to escape from these.

23. 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.

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

25. 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. Selected Essays

26. 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 saythat they do not like fighting, will often displayEvery symptom of wanting to join in the fray.And theyBark bark bark bark bark barkUntil you can hear them all over the park. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

27. The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man

28. There are certain points I do not yet understand:They will be clear later. I am also convincedThat you only hold a fragment of the explanation.It is only because of what you do not understandThat you feel the need to declare what you do.There is more to understand: hold fast to thatAs the way to freedom. The Family Reunion

29. There will be time, there will be timeTo 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 handsThat 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 a toast and tea. The Wasteland, Prufrock and Other Poems

30. 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. The Waste Land and Other Poems