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What matters most is not the idea, but the capacity to believe in it completely.

Ezra Pound

Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.
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Charge Degree Greatness Literature Meaning Possible
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
All great art is born of the metropolis.
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Art Born Greatness Metropolis
Any damn fool can be spontaneous.
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Fools One Liner Spontaneous
A people that grows accustomed to sloppy writing is a people in the process of losing grip on its empire and on itself.
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Empire Grip Growth Lose People Process Writing
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
If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.
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Himself Man Opinion Risk Willing
Use no word that under stress of emotion you could not actually say.
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Emotion Stress Word Yourself
The serious artist must be as open as nature. Nature does not give all of herself in a paragraph. She is rugged and not set apart into discreet categories.
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Artist Category Herself Nature Paragraph Serious
Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.
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Accurate Fundamental Moral Oneself Writing
The what is so much more important than how.
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Important Reason
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
Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever.
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Compare Deserve Forever Glossary Master Necessary Reading
If a nation’s literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.
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Decline Education Literature Nation
To say that a state cannot pursue its aims because there is no money, is like saying that an engineer cannot build roads, because there are no kilometers.
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Build Money Pursue State
Utter originality is, of course, out of the question.
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Course Original Question

What matters most is not the idea, but the capacity to believe in it completely.

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What matters most is not the idea, but the capacity to believe in it completely.

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Popular Authors

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