Thomas Stearns Eliot Zitate seite 3

„Poesie kann sich mitteilen, auch ehe sie verstanden ist.“

„Das Nützliche tun, das Mutige sagen, über das Schöne nachdenken: das reicht für das Leben eines Menschen.“

„Die Menschheit kann nicht sehr viel Realität ertragen.“

„Nur wer riskiert zu weit zu gehen, kann herausfinden, wie weit er gehen kann.“

„Manchmal werden Dinge möglich, wenn wir sie schlimm genug wollen.“

„Das meiste Böse auf dieser Welt wird von Menschen mit guten Absichten getan.“

„Die Existenz von Bibliotheken liefert den besten Beweis dafür, dass wir noch Hoffnung auf die Zukunft des Menschen haben können.“

“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.”

Thomas Stearns Eliot: Zitate auf Englisch

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

Choruses from The Rock (1934)
Kontext: O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
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
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

“Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time;
He's a Cat who has lived many lives in succession.”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)
Kontext: The lot of man is ceaseless labor,
Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder,
Or irregular labour, which is not pleasant.
I have trodden the winepress alone, and I know
That it is hard to be really useful, resigning
The things that men count for happiness, seeking
The good deeds that lead to obscurity, accepting
With equal face those that bring ignominy,
The applause of all or the love of none.
All men are ready to invest their money
But most expect dividends.
I say to you: Make perfect your will.
I say: take no thought of the harvest,
But only of proper sowing.

“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.”

T.S. Eliot buch Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Old Deuteronomy
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)
Kontext: Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time;
He's a Cat who has lived many lives in succession.
He was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme
A long while before Queen Victoria's accession.

“If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.”

Letter to Marquis Childs quoted in St. Louis Post Dispatch (15 October 1930) and in the address "American Literature and the American Language" delivered at Washington University (9 June 1953) published in Washington University Studies, New Series: Literature and Language, no. 23 (St. Louis : Washington University Press, 1953), p. 6
Kontext: 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.

“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.”

“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.”

T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Kontext: 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 a toast and tea.

“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.”

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.”

“Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.”

T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Quelle: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Kontext: I grow old … I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
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.
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.

“Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity”

“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.”

“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.”

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Quelle: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems
Kontext: I grow old … I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
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.
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.

“These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih”

“Books. Cats. Life is good.”

T.S. Eliot buch The Waste Land

The final lines of the poem.
The Waste Land (1922)
Quelle: The Waste Land and Other Poems

“Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.”

“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.”

T.S. Eliot buch Four Quartets

Quelle: Four Quartets

“The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.”

T.S. Eliot buch Four Quartets

Quelle: Four Quartets

“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.”

“Light
Light
The visible reminder of Invisible Light.”

“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.”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.”

“Do I dare Disturb the universe?”

“We don't actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace.”

Quelle: The Wasteland, Prufrock and Other Poems

“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.”

“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.”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“So I find words I never thought to speak

In streets I never thought I should revisit

When I left my body on a distant shore.”

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Quelle: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems
Kontext: I am no prophet — and here's no great matter;
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.

“Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care”

“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.”

Ash-Wednesday (1930)
Variante: Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care

“We had the experience but missed the meaning. And approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form.”