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It doesn’t matter which leg of your table you make first, so long as the table has four legs and will stand up solidly when you have finished it.

Ezra Pound

Poetry is a language pared down to its essentials.
EZRA POUND

Essential Language Poetry
A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.
EZRA POUND

Freedom Himself Slave
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
Poets who are not interested in music are, or become, bad poets.
EZRA POUND

Bad Interest Music Poet
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
I would hold the rosy, slender fingers of the dawn for you.
EZRA POUND

Fingers Hold Morning Myself
Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work.
EZRA POUND

Attention Criticism Pay Work Writing
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
EZRA POUND

Curse Early Financial Ourselves Time
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.
EZRA POUND

Better Friendship Pity Remember Rich
The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity.
EZRA POUND

Average Failure History Master Work
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
Consider the way of the scientists rather than the way of an advertising agent for a new soap.
EZRA POUND

Advertisement Science Soap Way
Use no word that under stress of emotion you could not actually say.
EZRA POUND

Emotion Stress Word Yourself
The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people.
EZRA POUND

Act Imply People Point Quiet Ring Symbol
Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.
EZRA POUND

Accurate Fundamental Moral Oneself Writing
The difference between a gun and a tree is a difference of tempo. The tree explodes every spring.
EZRA POUND

Difference Spring Tree Weapon

It doesn’t matter which leg of your table you make first, so long as the table has four legs and will stand up solidly when you have finished it.

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It doesn’t matter which leg of your table you make first, so long as the table has four legs and will stand up solidly when you have finished it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ezra Pound Quotes