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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.

Ezra Pound

Either move or be moved.
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Choice Deep Move One Liner
Artists are the antennae of the race.
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Artist Race
The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity.
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Average Failure History Master Work
Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will.
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Ourselves Poetry Stars Willing
Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work.
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Attention Criticism Pay Work Writing
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.
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Alive Ball Hands Intense Light One Liner Power Reading
Any damn fool can be spontaneous.
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Fools One Liner Spontaneous
A man’s hope measures his civilization. The attainability of the hope measures, or may measure, the civilization of his nation and time.
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Himself Hope Man Measurement Nation Time
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.
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Artificial Ignorance Moments Myself Natural
Speak against unconscious oppression, Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative, Speak against bonds.
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Bond Imagination Oppression Talk
Small talk comes from small bones.
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Body Bone Small Talk
All great art is born of the metropolis.
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Art Born Greatness Metropolis
Be not cheap or mediocre in desiring.
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Average Cheap Desire Mediocre
Man is an over-complicated organism. If he is doomed to extinction he will die out for want of simplicity.
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Complication Death Himself Man Organism
Bureaucrats are a pox. They are supposed to be necessary. Certain chemicals in the body are supposed to be necessary to life, but cause death the moment they increase beyond a suitable limit.
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Body Chemicals Death Limitation Moments Necessary
The concept of genius as akin to madness has been carefully cultivated by the inferiority complex of the public.
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Care Concept Genius Inferior Madness Public
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.
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Education Insist Limit Reality
It is the business of the artist to make humanity aware of itself.
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Artist Aware Business Humanity
No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents.
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Book Content Deep Live Man See Understand
Any general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.
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General Meet Statement Value
Poets who are not interested in music are, or become, bad poets.
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Bad Interest Music Poet
I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown.
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Myself Oneself Suicide Thinking Unknown
Rhythm must have meaning.
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Meaning One Liner Rhythm
Rhythm is form cut into time.
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Form Rhythm Time
What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage.
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Heritage Love True Well
Poetry is a very complex art, It is an art of pure sound bound in through an art of arbitrary and conventional symbols.
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Art Bound Convention Poetry Sound Symbol
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
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Curse Early Financial Ourselves Time

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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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ezra Pound Quotes