Thomas Stearns Eliot Zitate seite 8

„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.“

“And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads,
And no man knows or cares who is his neighbor
Unless his neighbor makes too much disturbance,
But all dash to and fro in motor cars,
Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.”

Thomas Stearns Eliot: Zitate auf Englisch

“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. I mean this as a principle of æsthetic, not merely historical, criticism.”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“In the vacant places
We will build with new bricks”

T.S. Eliot buch Tradition and the Individual Talent

Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

“I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“The work of creation is never without travail”

T.S. Eliot buch The Waste Land

Quelle: The Waste Land (1922), Line 39 et seq.

“The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backward devils.
I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime — Macavity's not there!”

T.S. Eliot buch Poems

"Gerontion"
Poems (1920)

“Jellicle Cats come out tonight,
Jellicle Cats come one come all:
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright —
Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.”

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

Macavity: The Mystery Cat
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

“Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.”

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

The Song of the Jellicles
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous —
Almost, at times, the Fool.”

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

Macavity: The Mystery Cat
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

“Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat —
And there isn't any call for me to shout it:
For he will do
As he do do
And there's no doing anything about it!”

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

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

“It is certain that a book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it.”

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

The Rum Tum Tugger
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

“And we all say: OH!
Well I never!
Was there ever
A Cat so clever
As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!”

Religion and Literature (1935)

“Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.”

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

Mr. Mistoffelees
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

“And I have known the eyes already, known them all —
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?”

T.S. Eliot buch Poems

"Gerontion"
Poems (1920)

“What have we to do but stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards in an age which advances progressively backwards?”

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

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

“We see the light but see not whence it comes.
O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee!”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“Webster was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“Out of the meaningless practical shapes of all that is living or lifeless
Joined with the artist's eye, new life, new form, new colour.
Out of the sea of sound the life of music,
Out of the slimy mud of words, out of the sleet and hail of verbal imprecisions,
Approximate thoughts and feelings, words that have taken the place of thoughts and feelings,
There spring the perfect order of speech, and the beauty of incantation.”

T.S. Eliot buch Poems

"Whispers of Immortality"
Poems (1920)

“We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“Atheism should always be encouraged (i. e. rationalistic not emotional atheism) for the sake of the Faith.”

T.S. Eliot buch The Hollow Men

The Hollow Men (1925)

“Signs are taken for wonders. “We would see a sign!”
The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness.”

Letter to Richard Aldington (24 February, 1927). The Letters of T.S. Eliot: 1926-1927 p. 424

“Mr. Aldous Huxley, who is perhaps one of those people who have to perpetrate thirty bad novels before producing a good one, has a certain natural — but little developed — aptitude for seriousness.”

T.S. Eliot buch Poems

"Gerontion"
Poems (1920)

“This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.”

The Contemporary English Novelist, La Nouvelle Revue française (1 May 1927)

“And I have known the arms already, known them all —
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair! ]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
:And how should I begin?

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

Ash-Wednesday (1930)

“Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice”

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

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

“A penny for the Old Guy”

Ash-Wednesday (1930)

“Long ago I studied the ancient Indian languages, and while I was chiefly interested at that time in philosophy, I read a little poetry too; and I know that my own poetry shows the influence of Indian thought and sensibility.”

T.S. Eliot buch The Hollow Men

A quotation of a traditional Guy Fawkes Night saying
The Hollow Men (1925)

“Signs are taken for wonders. “We would see a sign!””

Quelle: Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, T.S. Eliot. Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

“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.”

T.S. Eliot buch Poems

The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness.

"Gerontion"
Poems (1920)