Quotes by T. S. Eliot

"

No art is more stubbornly national than poetry.

"

Poetry is not the free rein given to emotion, but a way of escaping from its dominion, it is not the expression of personality, but a way of escaping from its dominion... But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to free yourself from them.

"

It is not a permanent necessity that poets should be concerned with philosophy or any other subject. We can only say, because it seems likely, that the poets of our civilization, as it now stands, are forced to be difficult poets...

"

The maturity of a literature reflects the maturity of the society that produces it.

"

The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more and more allusive and indirect, in order to compel the language, even by doing violence to it, to express his thought.

"

The theory of "art for art's sake" (if it can be called a theory), is still valid insofar as it can be taken as an exhortation to the artist to remain an artist; it was not and never will be valid for the viewer, reader or auditor.