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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.

Ezra Pound

The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.
EZRA POUND

Artist Craft Interest Live Modern Violence
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.
EZRA POUND

Accurate Clear Goodness Language Writing
Literature is news that stays news.
EZRA POUND

Literature News One Liner Stay
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.
EZRA POUND

Art Goodness Immoral Precise True Virtue
It is the business of the artist to make humanity aware of itself.
EZRA POUND

Artist Aware Business Humanity
Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance, poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.
EZRA POUND

Beginning Dance Far Music Poetry
In verse one can take any damn constant one likes, one can alliterate, or assone, or rhyme, or quant, or smack, only one MUST leave the other elements irregular.
EZRA POUND

Element Leaving Oneself Regular Rhyme
A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.
EZRA POUND

Freedom Himself Slave
No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents.
EZRA POUND

Book Content Deep Live Man See Understand
Don’t be blinded by the theorists and a lying press.
EZRA POUND

Blind Lying Press Theory
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.
EZRA POUND

Attention Himself Page Popular Reading Secret Writing
If I could believe the Quakers banned music because church music is so damn bad, I should view them with approval.
EZRA POUND

Approval Ban Believe Music View
Why fight for a flag when you can buy one for a nickel.
EZRA POUND

Fight Flag Yourself
Until you know who has lent what to whom, you know nothing whatever of politics, you know nothing whatever of history, you know nothing of international wrangles.
EZRA POUND

History International Politics Yourself
Technique is the test of sincerity.
EZRA POUND

Sincere Technique Test
Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something.
EZRA POUND

Adjective Reveal Word

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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