Happy Birthday T. S. Eliot!

We shall not 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.

Wir suchen das Wissen, das wir durch Information verloren haben.

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

So wird die Welt zu Ende gehen, nicht mit lautem Schlag, sondern mit Wimmern.

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.

Alle große Dichtung erweckt die Illusion einer Lebensanschauung.

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

Die schlimmste Art Versager ist der Mann, der sich immer wieder vormachen muss, dass er ein erfolgreicher Mann ist.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing.

Auf diese Weise endet die Welt: Nicht mit einem Knall, sondern mit einem Wimmern.

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?

Die Menschheit erträgt nicht allzu viel Wirklichkeit.

I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.

An der Hälfte des Unheils, das auf der Welt geschieht, sind Menschen schuld, die sich wichtig machen wollen.

April is the cruellest month.

Die Hölle, das sind wir selbst.

If you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human being can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby 'it.'

Wer vor seiner Vergangenheit flieht, verliert das Rennen.

If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?

Die Reue entspringt aus der Erkenntnis der Wahrheit.

Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.

Männer leben vom Vergessen - Frauen von Erinnerungen.

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Nützliches tun, mutig sprechen, sich in Schönes versenken – das ist genug für ein Menschenleben.

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.

Wahre Dichtung kann mitteilen, bevor sie verstanden wird.

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.

Wo ist die Weisheit, die wir im Wissen verloren haben? Wo ist das Wissen, das wir in der Information verloren haben?

O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

Tradition kann nicht vererbt werden, wer ihrer teilhaft werden möchte, muss sie sich mit großer Mühe selbst erwerben.

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Zwischen Gedanke und Tat fällt der Schatten.

As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

Der Dichter in Shaw war eine Totgeburt - Shaw ist als Dramatiker höchst frühreif und als Dichter weniger als unreif.

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.

Kultur ist die ganze Lebensweise eines Volkes, alles, was das Leben lebenswert macht.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.

Man macht Lärm und glaubt sich zu unterhalten. Man macht Grimassen und glaubt sich zu verstehen.

Let's not be narrow, nasty, and negative.

Wir werden nicht nachlassen in unserem Kundschaften, und am Ende unseres Kundschaftens wird es sein, am Ausgangspunkt anzukommen und den Ort zum ersten mal zu erkennen.

It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves.

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.

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

We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.

Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage we did not take, towards the door we never opened, into the rose garden.

For last year's words belong to last year's language 
And next year's words await another voice.

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.

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

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

Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

It's strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words.

You are the music while the music lasts.