Murder in the Cathedral

By T.S. Eliot

QUOTATION: Human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
ATTRIBUTION: T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888–1965), Anglo-American poet, critic. Four Quartets (1942). “Burnt Norton,” pt. 1 (1936).

QUOTATION: The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
ATTRIBUTION: T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888–1965), Anglo-American poet, critic. Thomas à Becket, in Murder in the Cathedral, pt. 1 (1935).

QUOTATION: For every life and every act
Consequence of good and evil can be shown
And as in time results of many deeds are blended
So good and evil in the end become confounded.
ATTRIBUTION: T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888–1965), Anglo-American poet, critic. Thomas, in Murder in the Cathedral, pt. 2.

QUOTATION: And meanwhile we have gone on living,
Living and partly living,
Picking together the pieces,
Gathering faggots at nightfall,
Building a partial shelter,
For sleeping and eating and drinking and laughter.
ATTRIBUTION: T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888–1965), Anglo-American poet, critic. The Chorus of Women of Canterbury, in Murder in the Cathedral, pt. 1 (1935).

QUOTATION: We are not here to triumph by fighting, by stratagem, or by resistance,
Not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast
And have conquered. We have only to conquer
Now, by suffering. This is the easier victory.
ATTRIBUTION: T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888–1965), Anglo-American poet, critic. Thomas, in Murder in the Cathedral, pt. 2 (1935).

QUOTATION: In the small circle of pain within the skull
You still shall tramp and tread one endless round
Of thought, to justify your action to yourselves,
Weaving a fiction which unravels as you weave,
Pacing forever in the hell of make-believe
Which never is belief: this is your fate on earth
And we must think no further of you.
ATTRIBUTION: T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888–1965), Anglo-U.S. poet, critic. third priest, in Murder in the Cathedral, pt. 2 (1935).