Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.
T. S. EliotRead
There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
Interpretation
Music serves as a powerful source of relief for emotions like fear and grief.
In this quote, T. S. Eliot emphasizes the profound ability of music to provide solace and comfort to individuals experiencing intense emotions. He suggests that music transcends ordinary feelings, offering a unique form of relief during times of distress, particularly when faced with fear and grief, making it an essential part of the human experience.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the therapeutic benefits of music.
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.
I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics.
If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
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.
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool.
Better that you should take the chance of trying something that is close to your heart, you think is what you want to write, and if they do not publish it, put it in your drawer. But maybe another day will come and you will find a place to put that.
Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it.
Music is always a commentary on society.
I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable.
Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality, understood as recalcitrant, inaccessible; of making it stand still. One can't possess reality, one can possess (and be possessed by) images — as, according to Proust, most ambitious of voluntary prisoners, one can't possess the present but one can possessthe past.
A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes.
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