T. S. Eliot on Time

“Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present.”

“You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure, That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.”

“Here between the hither and the farther shore While time is withdrawn, consider the future And the past with an equal mind.”

“Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable.”

“Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past Into different lives, or into any future; You are not the same people who left that station Or who will arrive at any terminus, While the narrowing rails slide together behind you.”

“Time past and time future Allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden, The moment in the arbour where the rain beat, The moment in the draughty church at smokefall Be remembered; involved with past and future. Only through time time is conquered. (II)”

“Time the destroyer is time the preserver, Like the river with its cargo of dead negroes, cows and chicken coops, The bitter apple, and the bite in the apple. And the ragged rock in the restless waters, Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it; On a halcyon day it is merely a monument, In navigable weather it is always a seamark To lay a course by: but in the sombre season Or the sudden fury, is what it always was.”