pull down to refresh
Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience.
----T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
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.
Vaine is the vaunt, and victory unjust, that more to mighty hands, then rightfull cause doth trust.
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
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.
T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems
Men dislike being awakened from their death in life.
T.S. Eliot
Money can't buy love, but it improves your bargaining position.
Christopher Marlowe
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
T.S. Eliot
They that haue much, feare much to loose thereby,
And store of cares doth follow riches store.
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
And sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.
Resign yourself to be the fool you are...
...We must always take risks. That is our destiny...
T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party
With golden giftes and many a guilefull word
Entyced her, to him for accord.
O who may not with gifts and words be tempted?
Edmund Spenser
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
All live to die, and rise to fall.
Christopher Marlowe, Edward II
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.
T.S. Eliot
O Who can tell
The hidden power of herbes, and might of Magick spell?
Edmund Spenser
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.
T.S. Eliot
Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor
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
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.
T.S. Eliot
Oftimes it haps, that sorrowes of the mynd
Find remedie vnsought, which seeking cannot fynd.
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Christoper Marlowe, The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus
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? -
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems
Hark, how the cheerful birds do chaunt their lays, and carol of love's praise.
Edmund Spenser
Do I dare Disturb the universe?
T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland, Prufrock and Other Poems
What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?
William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
T.S. Eliot
Deare knight, as deare, as euer knight was deare,
That all these sorrowes suffer for my sake,
High heuen behold the tedious toyle, ye for me take . . .
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
Light
Light
The visible reminder of Invisible Light.
T.S. Eliot
Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
Christopher Marlowe
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.
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems
But nothing new to him was that same pain;
Nor pain at all; for he so oft had tried . . .
and lov'd so oft in vain.
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
Success is relative. It is what we make of the mess we have made of things.
T.S. Eliot
Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak.
William Shakespeare, As You Like It
I must tell you that I should really like to think there's something wrong with me- Because, if there isn't, then there's something wrong with the world itself-and that's much more frightening! That would be terrible. So I'd rather believe there is something wrong with me, that could be put right.
T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party
Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, Ease after war, death after life does greatly please.
Edmund Spenser
We don't actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace.
t.s. eliot
What nourishes me, destroys me
Christopher Marlowe
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
T.S. Eliot
Ah for pittie, wil ranke Winters rage,
These bitter blasts neuer ginne tasswage?
The keene cold blowes throug my beaten hyde,
All as I were through the body gryde.
My ragged rontes all shiver and shake,
As doen high Towers in an earthquake:
They wont in the wind wagge their wrigle tailes,
Perke as Peacock: but nowe it auales.
Edmund Spenser, The Shepherd's
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.
T.S. Eliot.
Awake, dear heart, awake. Thou hast slept well. Awake.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.
But double griefs afflict concealing hearts,
As raging flames who striveth to suppress.
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
T.S. Eliot
What art thou Faustus, but a man condemned to die?
Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
-But who is that on the other side of you?
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
Edmund Spenser, Amoretti
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T.S. Eliot, The Rock
I dreamt a dream tonight.
Mercutio: And so did I.
Romeo: Well, what was yours?
Mercutio: That dreamers often lie.
Romeo: In bed asleep while they do dream things true.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
We had the experience but missed the meaning. And approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form.
T.S. Eliot
no Art, nor any Leach's Might . . .
Can remedy such hurts; such hurts are hellish Pain.
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
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?
T.S. Eliot
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike
Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you
I will show you fear in a handful of dust
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
The faithfull knight now grew in litle space, By hearing her, and by her sisters lore, To such perfection of all heavenly grace, That wretched world he gan for to abhore,
Edmund Spenser, Spenser's The Faerie
In my end is my beginning.
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy
eyes—and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.
William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Teach us to care and not to care
T.S. Eliot
The faithfull knight now grew in litle space, By hearing her, and by her sisters lore, To such perfection of all heavenly grace, That wretched world he gan for to abhore,
Edmund Spenser, Spenser's The Faerie
We do not pass through the same door twice
Or return to the door through which we did not pass
T.S. Eliot
Mephistopheles: Within the bowels of these elements,
Where we are tortured and remain forever.
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self place, for where we are is hell,
And where hell is must we ever be.
And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell that is not heaven.
Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems
He seekes out mighty charmes , to trouble sleepy mindes.
Edmund Spenser, Book 1 of the Faery Queene
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Your fate awaits you. Accept it in body and spirit. To get used to the life you'll most likely be leading soon, get rid of your low-class trappings.
---William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all unless you repute yourself such a loser.
William Shakespeare, Othello
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
----William Shakespeare, Hamlet