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If a nation’s literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.

Ezra Pound

No good poetry is ever written in a manner twenty years old, for to write in such a manner shows conclusively that the writer thinks from books, convention and cliché, not from real life.
EZRA POUND

Goodness Life Reality Thinking Writing
The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet black bough.
EZRA POUND

Black Crowd Face Wet
A civilized man is one who will give a serious answer to a serious question. Civilization itself is a certain sane balance of values.
EZRA POUND

Answer Balance Civilization Serious Value
Use no word that under stress of emotion you could not actually say.
EZRA POUND

Emotion Stress Word Yourself
The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.
EZRA POUND

Artist Creation Himself Work
The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people.
EZRA POUND

Chance Kill Oneself People Problem Reality Right War
What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it.
EZRA POUND

Himself Hold Ideas Man
Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts.
EZRA POUND

Art Growth Humanity Tree Waste
If a patron buys from an artist who needs money (needs money to buy tools, time, food), the patron then makes himself equal to the artist; he is building art into the world; he creates.
EZRA POUND

Artist Build Creation Equality Money World
Glance is the enemy of vision.
EZRA POUND

Enemy One Liner Vision
The Image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.
EZRA POUND

Energy Ideas Image
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

Day Enough Night Shake
Poetry is a very complex art, It is an art of pure sound bound in through an art of arbitrary and conventional symbols.
EZRA POUND

Art Bound Convention Poetry Sound Symbol
The temple is holy because it is not for sale.
EZRA POUND

Holy Sale Temple
Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work.
EZRA POUND

Attention Criticism Pay Work Writing
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.
EZRA POUND

Education Insist Limit Reality

If a nation’s literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.

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If a nation’s literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.

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Popular Authors

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