T.S. Eliot

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down. - 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. - T.S. Eliot

Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important. - T.S. Eliot

Time past and time future, what might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. - T.S. Eliot

This is the way the world ends, This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper. {from the poem "The Hollow Men"} - T.S. Eliot

We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time. - T.S. Eliot

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. (written by Eliot appearing in a book of poems by Harry Crosby, Transit of Venus, Black Sun Press, Paris: 1931)  - T.S. Eliot

Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things. - T.S. Eliot

If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you. - T.S. Eliot

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. - T.S. Eliot

For I have known them all already, know them all: have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons; I have measured out my life with coffee spoons... {from the poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"}  - T.S. Eliot

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. - T.S. Eliot

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. - T.S. Eliot

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? - T.S. Eliot

Any religion...is for ever in danger of putrifaction into mere ritual and habit, though ritual and habit be essential to religion.  - T.S. Eliot

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. - T.S. Eliot