Ezra Pound quotes

Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one. (Ezra Pound)
Literature is news that stays news. View quote
Ezra Pound
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. View quote
Ezra Pound
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good. View quote
Ezra Pound
A civilized man is one who will give a serious answer to a serious question. Civilization itself is a certain sane balance of values. View quote
Ezra Pound
People find ideas a bore because they do not distinguish between live ones and stuffed ones on a shelf. View quote
Ezra Pound
The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism. View quote
Ezra Pound
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding. View quote
Ezra Pound
The art of letters will come to an end before A.D. 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity. View quote
Ezra Pound
A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him. View quote
Ezra Pound
But the one thing you should. not do is to suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY. (Ezra Pound)
Any general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it. View quote
Ezra Pound
Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market. View quote
Ezra Pound
Poetry must be as well written as prose. View quote
Ezra Pound
Artists are the antennae of the race, but the bullet-headed many will never learn to trust the great artists. View quote
Ezra Pound
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. View quote
Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd Petals on a wet, black bough. View quote
Ezra Pound
The temple is holy because it is not for sale. View quote
Ezra Pound
Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. View quote
Ezra Pound
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. View quote
Ezra Pound
No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents. (Ezra Pound)
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. View quote
Ezra Pound
Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts. View quote
Ezra Pound
One discards rhyme, not because one is incapable of rhyming neat, fleet, sweet, meet, treat, eat, feet but because there are certain emotions or energies which are nor represented by the over-familiar devices or patterns. View quote
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. View quote
Ezra Pound