Ezra Pound Quotes
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Quiet this metal! Let the manes put off their terror, let them put off their aqueous bodies with fire. Let them assume the milk-white bodies of agate. Let them draw together the bones of the metal.
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A civilized man is one who will give a serious answer to a serious question. Civilization itself is a certain sane balance of values.
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I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown.
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'Tis not need we know our every thought Or see the work shop where each mask is wrought Wherefrom we view the world of box and pit, Careless of wear, just so the mask shall fit And serve our jape's turn for a night or two.
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Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.
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The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people.
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If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good.
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A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.
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Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.
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What counts is the cultural level.
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We live in an age of science and of abundance. The care and reverence for books as such, proper to an age when no book was duplicated until someone took the pains to copy it out by hand, is obviously no longer suited to ’the needs of society’, or to the conservation of learning. The weeder is supremely needed if the Garden of the Muses is to persist as a garden.
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Man is an over-complicated organism. If he is doomed to extinction he will die out for want of simplicity.
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The age demanded an image Of its accelerated grimace, Something for the modern stage, Not, at any rate, an Attic grace.
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Religion I have defined as "Another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art".
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Genius is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one, and the man of talent sees two or three, plus the ability to register that multiple perception in the material of his art.
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It is the business of the artist to make humanity aware of itself.
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Democracy is now currently defined in Europe as a 'country run by Jews,'
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And the days are not full enough And the nights are not full enough And life slips by like a field mouse Not shaking the grass.
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There is natural ignorance and there is artificial ignorance. I should say at the present moment the artificial ignorance is about eighty-five per cent.
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The eyes of this dead lady speak to me For here was love, was not to be drowned out. And here desire, not to be kissed away. The eyes of this dead lady speak to me.
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Poetry must be as well written as prose.
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The man of understanding can no more sit quiet and resigned while his country lets its literature decay, and lets good writing meet with contempt, than a good doctor could sit quiet and contented while some ignorant child was infecting itself with tuberculosis under the impression that it was merely eating jam tarts.
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Good art however 'immoral' is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can NOT be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise.
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To say that a state cannot pursue its aims because there is no money, is like saying that an engineer cannot build roads, because there are no kilometers.