Frases de Thomas Stearns Eliot

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“Às vezes, as coisas se tornam possíveis se as quisermos o suficiente.”

“Infelizmente há momentos em que a violência é a única maneira de assegurar a justiça social.”

“Onde está a sabedoria que nós perdemos no conhecimento? Onde está o conhecimento que nós perdemos na informação?”

“Só os que se arriscam a ir longe demais são capazes de descobrir o quão longe se pode ir.”

“O homem que age não sofre.”

“Se você não tem força para impor seus próprios termos à vida, você deve aceitar os termos que ela lhe oferece.”

“O fim de toda nossa busca será chegarmos onde começamos e ver o lugar pela primeira vez.”

“Todos os casos são únicos, e muito similares a outros.”

“Não deixaremos de explorar e, ao término da nossa exploração deveremos chegar ao ponto de partida e conhecer esse lugar pela primeira vez.”

“A poesia genuína pode comunicar-se antes que se seja compreendido.”

“A única sabedoria que uma pessoa pode esperar adquirir é a sabedoria da humildade.”

“A última tentação é a maior das traições: fazer a coisa certa pela razão errada.”

“É assim que o mundo termina,
não com um estrondo, mas com uma choradeira.”

“Numa terra de fugitivos aquele que anda na direção contrária parece estar fugindo.”

“O que poderia ter sido e o que foi convergem para um só fim, que é sempre presente.”

“O poema é um processo de exploração, um esforço para atingir o círculo que é o seu foco, e retornar ao ponto de partida com uma maior compreensão do mesmo”

“Os poetas imaturos imitam; os poetas maturos roubam; os maus poetas desfiguram o que pegam, e bons poetas transformam-no em algo melhor, ou pelo menos em algo diferente.”

“A tradição não é dada por direito de herança, e, se a quiser, é preciso muito trabalho para a obter.”

“E que rumor é este agora? O quê anda o vento a fazer lá fora? Nada! Como sempre, nada!”

“O sucesso é relativo: é aquilo que quisermos fazer da confusão que fizemos das coisas.”

“Apenas se constrói com solidez sobre o passado.”

“Ao desenvolver a linguagem enriquecendo o significado das palavras, o poeta está tornando possível uma gama muito mais ampla de emoções e percepções para outros homens, porque lhes dá a fala na qual é possível expressar-se melhor.”

“O único modo de exprimir uma emoção de forma artística é encontrando um 'correlativo objectivo'; por outras palavras, uma série de objectos, uma situação, uma cadeia de acontecimentos que representem a fórmula daquela emoção particular.”

“A poesia não é um modo de libertar a emoção, mas uma fuga da emoção; não é uma expressão da própria personalidade, mas uma fuga da personalidade.”

“A raça humana
Não pode suportar muita realidade.”

“Em uma peça de Shakespeare, podemos obter vários graus de significado. Para o público mais simples há a trama; para os mais instruídos, o caráter e o conflito dos personagens; para o mais literário, as palavras e as frases; para os dotados de maior sensibilidade musical, o ritmo, e para os de maior sensibilidade e capacidade de entender, um significado que se revela gradualmente.”

“A poesia de um povo deriva sua vida da fala do povo e, por sua vez, dá-lhe uma vida; e representa o seu ponto mais elevado de consciência, o seu maior poder e a sua mais delicada sensibilidade.”

“Esta é a maneira que o mundo acaba
Esta é a maneira que o mundo acaba
Esta é a maneira que o mundo acaba
Não com um estrondo, mas um gemido.”

“Para as palavras do ano passado pertencem ao idioma do ano passado
E as palavras do ano que vem aguardam outra voz.”

“There came one who spoke of the shame of Jerusalem
And the holy places defiled;
Peter the Hermit, scourging with words.
And among his hearers were a few good men,
Many who were evil,
And most who were neither,
Like all men in all places.”

“But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where.
Men have left GOD not for other gods, they say, but for no God; and this has never happened before
That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason,
And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic.”

“They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is shall shadow
The man that pretends to be.”

“When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city ?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?"”

“What life have you, if you have not life together?
There is not life that is not in community,
And no community not lived in praise of GOD.”

“Where the bricks are fallen
We will build with new stone
Where the beams are rotten
We will build with new timbers
Where the word is unspoken
We will build with new speech
There is work together
A Church for all
And a job for each
Every man to his work.”

“You neglect and belittle the desert.
The desert is not remote in southern tropics
The desert is not only around the corner,
The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,
The desert is in the heart of your brother.”

“The lot of man is ceaseless labor,
Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder,
Or irregular labour, which is not pleasant.
I have trodden the winepress alone, and I know
That it is hard to be really useful, resigning
The things that men count for happiness, seeking
The good deeds that lead to obscurity, accepting
With equal face those that bring ignominy,
The applause of all or the love of none.
All men are ready to invest their money
But most expect dividends.
I say to you: Make perfect your will.
I say: take no thought of the harvest,
But only of proper sowing.”

“And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth
This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.”

“If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence”

“Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.”

“Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow .”

“This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
[...]
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
[http://aduni.org/~heather/occs/honors/Notesonpoem.htm#fiftysevensixty In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
]Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
[http://aduni.org/~heather/occs/honors/Notesonpoem.htm#sixtyonesixtytwo Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear]
[http://aduni.org/~heather/occs/honors/Notesonpoem.htm#sixtyfoursixtythree As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose]
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.”

“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.”

“After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What's not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. 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.”

“I grow old … I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
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.”

“It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while If one, settling a
Pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."”

“I am no prophet — and here's no great matter;
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.”

“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?”

“Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all: —
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?”

“There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands,
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.”

“Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us”

“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?”

“The 'greatness' of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards; though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards.”

“[A] wrong attitude towards nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God.”

“We may say that religion, as distinguished from modern paganism, implies a life in conformity with nature. It may be observed that the natural life and the supernatural life have a conformity to each other which neither has with the mechanistic life.”

“It is not enthusiasm, but dogma, that differentiates a Christian from a pagan society.”

“The division between those who accept, and those who deny, Christian revelation I take to be the most profound division between human beings.”

“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.”