The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the … — T. S. Eliot

The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all.

T. S. EliotPoet · American · 1888 – 1965

More from T. S. Eliot

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business. — Henry David Thoreau
I never called my work an 'art' It's part of show business, the business of building entertainment. — Walt Disney
Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done. — Peter Drucker
The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. — T. S. Eliot
I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics. — T. S. Eliot
Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly. — T. S. Eliot