Ezra Pound Quotes

“A real building is one on which the eye can light and stay lit.”

“A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.”

“Adolf Hitler was a Jeanne d'Arc, a saint. He was a martyr.”

“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”

“Come, let us pity those who are better off than we are.
Come, my friend, and remember
that the rich have butlers and no friends,
And we have friends and no butlers.
(excerpt from 'The Garrett')”

“Don't be blinded by the theorists and a lying press.”

“Either move or be moved.”

“Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.”

“Glance is the enemy of vision.”

“Go in fear of abstractions.”

“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.”

“I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.”

“I have tried to write Paradise
Do not move
Let the wind speak
that is paradise.
Let the Gods forgive what I
have made
Let those I love try to forgive
what I have made.”

“I would hold the rosy, slender fingers of the dawn for you.”

“If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good.”

“In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.”

“It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.”

“It ought to be illegal for an artist to marry. If the artist must marry let him find someone more interested in art, or his art, or the artist part of him, than in him. After which let them take tea together three times a week.”

“Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.”

“No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents.”

“Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market.”

“Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work. --Ezra Pound”

“Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.
”

“Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.”

“Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing. The rest is mere sheep herding.”

“Rhythm must have meaning.”

“Small talk comes from small bones”

“Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.”

“The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet black bough.”

“The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.”