There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
T. S. EliotRead
There are flood and drought over the eyes and in the mouth, dead water and dead sand contending for the upper hand. The parched eviscerate soil gapes at the vanity of toil, laughs without mirth. This is the death of the earth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the conflict between nature's extremes and the futility of human effort in the face of environmental decay.
T.S. Eliot's quote vividly illustrates the struggles between abundance and scarcity in nature, depicting a landscape ravaged by extremes of water and drought. The imagery suggests that human efforts to cultivate and control the earth are ultimately in vain as we confront the harsh realities of environmental degradation and the inevitability of nature's cycles, leading to a profound meditation on the death and rebirth of the earth.
Themes
NatureEnvironmentFutilityStruggleHuman EffortDegradation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about environmental conservation to stress the importance of respecting nature.
More from T. S. Eliot
All quotes →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.
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I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics.
T. S. EliotRead
If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
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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.
T. S. EliotRead
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
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...full of God's thoughts, a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted grandeur and enthusiastic action, a new song, a place of beginnings abounding in first lessons of life, mountain building, eternal, invincible, unbreakable order; with sermons in stone, storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful with humanity.
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He stood breathing, and the more he breathed the land in, the more he was filled up with all the details of the land. He was not empty. There was more than enough here to fill him. There would always be more than enough.
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It keeps eternal whisperings around desolate shores
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I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.
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Human beings grew up in forests; we have a natural affinity for them. How lovely a tree is, straining toward the sky.
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