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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With Usura With usura hath no man a house of good stone each block cut smooth and well fitting.
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Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.
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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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The secret of popular writing is never to put more on a given page than the common reader can lap off it with no strain whatsoever on his habitually slack attention.
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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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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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'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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I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown.
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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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A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.
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The ant's a centaur in his dragon world.
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Small talk comes from small bones.
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What counts is the cultural level.
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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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Religion I have defined as "Another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art".
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The only history that matters is the history we know.
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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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Man is an over-complicated organism. If he is doomed to extinction he will die out for want of simplicity.
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A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.
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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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The real trouble with war modern war is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people.
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Rhythm is form cut into time.
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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.