Four Quartets

Explore 6 quotes from Four Quartets

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.

T.S. Eliot

Burnt Norton

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Topic

The road not taken Grass is always greener Counterfactual history

Author

T.S. Eliot

Source

Burnt Norton Four Quartets

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1936 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Eliot, T. S. “Burnt Norton.” Collected Poems 1909–1935. Harcourt, Brace And Company, 1936, pt. 1.

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

Burnt Norton

More information about this quote

Topic

Meaning of words Words Limits of language

Author

T.S. Eliot

Source

Burnt Norton Four Quartets

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1936 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Eliot, T. S. “Burnt Norton.” Collected Poems 1909–1935. Harcourt, Brace And Company, 1936, pt. 5.

At the still point, there the dance is.

T.S. Eliot

More information about this quote

Topic

Stillness Dancing

Author

T.S. Eliot

Source

Burnt Norton Four Quartets

Medium

Poem

Statement Type

Paradox

Language

English

Time

1936 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Citation

Eliot, T. S. “Burnt Norton.” Collected Poems 1909–1935. Harcourt, Brace And Company, 1936, pt. 2.

Human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.

T.S. Eliot

Burnt Norton

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Topic

Facing the truth Delusion Human nature

Author

T.S. Eliot

Source

Burnt Norton Four Quartets

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1936 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Citation

Eliot, T. S. “Burnt Norton.” Collected Poems 1909–1935. Harcourt, Brace And Company, 1936, pt. 1.

Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling. Eating and drinking. Dung and death.

T.S. Eliot

Four Quartets

More information about this quote

Topic

Rhythm of life

Author

T.S. Eliot

Source

East Coker Four Quartets

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1940 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Eliot, T. S. "East Coker." New English Weekly, Mar. 1940.

The sea is the land's edge also, the granite
Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses
It hints of earlier and other creation:
The starfish, the hermit crab, the whale's backbone;
The pools where it offers to our curiosity
The more delicate algae and the sea anemone.
It tosses up our losses, the torn seine,
The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar
And the gear of foreigh dead men. The sea has many voices.

T.S. Eliot

Four Quartets

More information about this quote

Topic

Ocean and sea

Author

T.S. Eliot

Source

The Dry Salvages Four Quartets

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1941 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Eliot, T. S. "The Dry Salvages." New English Weekly, Feb. 1941.