“We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors' victory, though that victory itself will be temporary.” Finding meaning in efforts whose value may only become apparent to later generations · Essay, Francis Herbert Bradley Despair Hope Time
“Life is always turned toward creation; the present only, keeps the past alive.” Presenting the living present as the force that continually renews inherited culture · Lecture, Modern Tendencies in Poetry Art Memory Time
“He need not know what his poetry will come to mean to others; and a prophet need not understand the meaning of his prophetic utterance.” Recognising that works may acquire meanings beyond the conscious intention of their creators · Essay, Virgil and the Christian World Poetry Time Truth
“What we need is not information but knowledge: the first step to knowledge is to recognize the differences between his form of thought and feeling and ours.” Distinguishing genuine historical understanding from the accumulation of facts · Essay, Dante Time Truth
“Our problem being to form the future, we can only form it on the materials of the past; we must use our heredity, instead of denying it.” Arguing that renewal depends upon engaging constructively with inherited culture · Essay, The Humanism of Irving Babbitt Hope Memory Time
“What I do wish to affirm is that the whole of modern literature is corrupted by what I call Secularism.” Stating Eliot's strongly held religious critique of modern literary culture · Essay, Religion and Literature Art Faith
“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.” Separating aesthetic judgement from broader judgements about a work's ultimate significance · Essay, Religion and Literature Art Truth
“Literary criticism should be completed by criticism from a definite ethical and theological standpoint.” Expressing Eliot's belief that literary judgement cannot finally be separated from moral and religious commitments · Essay, Religion and Literature Art Faith Truth
“For literary judgement we need to be acutely aware of two things at once: of 'what we like', and of 'what we ought to like'.” Distinguishing personal taste from considered critical judgement · Essay, Religion and Literature Art Truth
“Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living.” Giving culture its broadest value as a source of meaning in human life · Treatise, Notes towards the Definition of Culture Art Beauty Joy
“A classic can only occur when a civilization is mature; when a language and a literature are mature; and it must be the work of a mature mind.” Connecting enduring literary achievement with maturity of mind, language and culture · Lecture, What is a Classic? Art Time
“If there is one word on which we can fix, which will suggest the maximum of what I mean by the term 'a classic', it is the word maturity.” Making maturity central to Eliot's conception of the literary classic · Lecture, What is a Classic? Art Time
“The rarest experience is to come across a new poet who strikes you as so good that you don't need anybody's judgment but your own.” Describing the uncommon certainty of encountering an unmistakably powerful new poetic voice · Essay, The Publishing of Poetry Art Poetry
“Real poetry survives not only a change of popular opinion but the complete extinction of interest in the issues with which the poet was passionately concerned.” Arguing that lasting poetry transcends the immediate controversies surrounding its creation · Essay, The Social Function of Poetry Fame Poetry Time
“The people which ceases to care for its literary inheritance becomes barbaric; the people which ceases to produce literature ceases to move in thought and sensibility.” Presenting living literature as essential to cultural memory and development · Essay, The Social Function of Poetry Art Memory Poetry
“The poetry of a people takes its life from the people's speech and in turn gives life to it.” Emphasising the reciprocal relationship between poetry and everyday language · Lecture series, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism Art Poetry
“The chief use of the 'meaning' of a poem may be to satisfy one habit of the reader, to keep his mind diverted and quiet, while the poem does its work upon him.” Suggesting that a poem can act upon the reader beyond its explicit paraphrasable meaning · Lecture series, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism Art Poetry
“Poetry begins, I dare say, with a savage beating a drum in the jungle, and it retains that essential of percussion and rhythm.” Locating the origins of poetry in rhythm and bodily sound · Lecture series, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism Music Poetry
“The rudiment of criticism is the ability to select a good poem and reject a bad poem; and its most severe test is of its ability to select a good new poem.” Defining criticism fundamentally as the exercise of sound literary judgement · Lecture series, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism Art Poetry
“It is not from rules, or by cold-blooded imitation of style, that we learn to write: we learn by imitation indeed, but by a deeper imitation than is achieved by analysis of style.” Describing literary influence as absorption rather than mechanical copying · Essay, The Music of Poetry Art Poetry
“The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an 'objective correlative'.” Introducing Eliot's influential idea that emotion in art requires an adequate external form · Essay, Hamlet Art Poetry
“The end of the enjoyment of poetry is a pure contemplation from which all the accidents of personal emotion are removed.” Describing an ideal encounter with poetry freed from merely personal reactions · Essay, The Perfect Critic Art Poetry
“And the free intelligence is that which is wholly devoted to inquiry.” Defining intellectual freedom through commitment to questioning and investigation · Essay, The Perfect Critic Truth
“The mature poet, in the operations of his mind, works like the chemist. He is aware, not that he wants to say something, but that there is something to be said.” Portraying poetic creation as discovery rather than mere self-expression · Lecture, Modern Tendencies in Poetry Art Poetry
