“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
“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
“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 poet must develop or procure the consciousness of the past and that he should continue to develop this consciousness throughout his career.” Making historical awareness an enduring responsibility of the poet · Essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent Memory Poetry Time
“What happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it.” Arguing that genuinely new art changes how earlier art is perceived · Essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent Art Memory Time
“The past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past.” Presenting tradition as a living relationship in which past and present reshape one another · Essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent Art Memory Time
“There is no such thing as a Lost Cause because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause.” Questioning the permanence of both defeat and victory · Essay, Francis Herbert Bradley Despair Hope Time
“The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.” A characteristically dry observation on the demands of later life · Remark quoted in Time, 1950 Mortality Time
“Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow: but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment.” Distinguishing passing crises from enduring human problems · Treatise, The Idea of a Christian Society Time Truth
“If one can really penetrate the life of another age, one is penetrating the life of one's own.” Suggesting that deep engagement with history illuminates the present · Introduction, The Selected Poems of Ezra Pound Memory Time Truth
