Quotes

Quotes to inspire and reflect

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson

’Tis a queer life, and the only humor proper to it seems quiet astonishment. Others laugh, weep, sell, or proselyte. I admire.

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Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard

La Terre est Bleue Comme une Orange .

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Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison

While one can do nothing about choosing one’s relatives, one can, as artist, choose one’s “ancestors.”

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Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison

America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain. . . . Our fate is to become one, and yet many—This is not prophecy, but description.

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Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison

Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies,

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

[ On The Waste Land:] Various critics have done me the honor to interpret the poem in terms of criticism of the contemporary world, have considered it, indeed, as an important bit of social criticism. To me it was only the relief of a personal and wholly insignificant grouse against life; it is just a piece of rhythmical grumbling.

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Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison

I am an invisible man. . . . I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Consumed by either fire or fire.

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

A condition of complete simplicity

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Who then devised the torment? Love.

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

We only live, only suspire

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Our concern was speech, and speech impelled us

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

First, the cold friction of expiring sense

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Who are only undefeated

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

In the uncertain hour before the morning

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Music heard so deeply

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Not fare well,

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

We must be still and still moving

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Old men ought to be explorers.

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

In spite of that, we call this Friday good.

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

And so each venture

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory:

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

The whole earth is our hospital

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Even among these rocks,

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Wavering between the profit and the loss

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Redeem

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Terminate torment

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

And pray to God to have mercy upon us

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

The great poet, in writing himself, writes his time.

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

The general point of view may be described as classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion.

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Were we led all that way for

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

[The critic must] compose his differences with as many of his fellows as possible in the common pursuit of true judgement.

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Between the idea

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Dayadhvam : I have heard the key

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

The awful daring of a moment’s surrender

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

I Tiresias have foresuffered all

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

“What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

Unreal City,

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T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.

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