There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
Men dislike being awakened from their death in life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that many people are content to live in a state of complacency and avoid facing the deeper truths of life.
T. S. Eliot's quote speaks to the human tendency to resist change and self-awareness, describing a state where individuals may feel dead inside due to a lack of engagement with their true selves or the world around them. It reflects on how people often fear awakening from their 'death in life', preferring the security of their established routines and comforts, even if those routines may lead to an unfulfilled existence.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech encouraging self-reflection, you might use this quote to highlight the importance of personal growth.
More from T. S. Eliot
All quotes βHalf 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 allβ Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Similar quotes
One of the very first things I figured out about life...is that it's better to be a hopeful person than a cynical, grumpy one, because you have to live in the same world either way, and if you're hopeful, you have more fun.
Life is made up not necessarily of great sacrifices or high-level duties but of little things. The smiles, the kindnesses, the commitments and obligations and responsibilities that are given habitually and lovingly are the blessings that win and preserve the heart and bring comfort to one's self as we as to others. This is the ministry of service performed by every useful life.
Each new thing he encountered in life impelled him in a direction that fully convinced him of its rightness, but then the next new thing loomed up and impelled him in the opposite direction, which also felt right. There was no controlling narrative: he seemed to himself a purely reactive pinball in a game whose only object was to stay alive for staying alive's sake.
One of the hardest things in life to accept is a called third strike.
I was a quicksilver girl who saw every leaf on every tree. For me, there was no middle ground between sinking and flying, and once I was into my early adult years, my roller coaster got wilder and faster: I seemed to rise and fall with the same reckless velocity.
A leaf that is destined to grow large is full of grooves and wrinkles at the start. Now if one has no patience and wants it smooth offhand like a willow leaf, there is trouble ahead.