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Who really said it

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started

Written by T. S. Eliot 1888–1965 · poet, critic & playwright
Verified In copyright

These lines open the final verse paragraph of “Little Gidding,” the fourth and final poem in Eliot’s Four Quartets — they are not the poem’s close, which runs on to “And the fire and the rose are one.” “Little Gidding” first appeared in the New English Weekly in October 1942 and was collected with the other three quartets in 1943. The wording matches the text as quoted in standard reference sources; we have not yet checked it against a first-edition scan.

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started” T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets (1943)

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Still under copyright (rights held by Estate of T. S. Eliot / Faber & Faber (UK); HarperCollins (US, successor to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade division)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of T. S. Eliot — poet, critic & playwright. Theme: "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The source

Work
Little Gidding (Four Quartets, no. 4)
First published
October 1942 (New English Weekly); Faber & Faber pamphlet, 1 December 1942; collected in Four Quartets (New York, 1943; London, 1944)
Publisher
Faber & Faber (UK) / Harcourt, Brace & Co. (US)

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.

These four lines open the final verse paragraph of “Little Gidding”; the poem continues past them to its last line. The popular quotation runs the first three lines together as one sentence and stops short of the fourth, “And know the place for the first time.” Quoted here in short extract for criticism and review.

Four Quartets, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1943 (Internet Archive catalog record — borrow-only)

How we verified this

In copyright

“Little Gidding” was first published in 1942 and collected in Four Quartets in 1943 — well after the 1930 public-domain cutoff for the United States — so the poem remains under copyright, administered by Faber & Faber on behalf of the Eliot Estate.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Context

Why it mattered

These lines open the final verse paragraph of “Little Gidding,” the fourth of Eliot’s Four Quartets, meditating on time, memory, and spiritual return — the idea that a journey outward ends in a renewed, deeper recognition of where one began. The poem does not stop here: it runs on to close on “And the fire and the rose are one.”

Eliot wrote the poem during the Second World War while serving as an air-raid warden in London; “Little Gidding” takes its title from the Anglican religious community in Huntingdonshire that Eliot visited in 1936.

And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Little Gidding (poem)en.wikipedia.org

Overview of the poem, its 1942 composition and publication history
Four Quartetsen.wikipedia.org

Publication history of the collected 1943 volume containing Little Gidding
Four Quartets, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1943archive.org

Internet Archive catalog record for the Harcourt, Brace 1943 printing — borrow-only, so the text is not openly readable
T. S. Elioten.wikipedia.org

Biography of the author, including the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature
Permissions for Eliot's workfaber.co.uk

Faber & Faber's rights-licensing page confirming the Eliot Estate's ongoing copyright control
"We shall not cease from exploration..." quote pagegoodreads.com

User-contributed quote page showing how the wording circulates online — a popular-usage datapoint, not a text authority

The author

About T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot

1888–1965 · poet, critic & playwright

Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American-born, later British poet and critic, a central figure of literary modernism. He wrote The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943), and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Eliot, T. S. “Little Gidding.” In Four Quartets. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1943 (first published separately, Faber & Faber, 1942).

MLA (9th ed.)

Eliot, T. S. “Little Gidding.” Four Quartets, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1943.

APA (7th ed.)

Eliot, T. S. (1943). Little Gidding. In Four quartets. Harcourt, Brace and Company.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/we-shall-not-cease-from-exploration-and-the-end-of-all-our/

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