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Any general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.

Ezra Pound

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
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.
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Accurate Clear Goodness Language Writing
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.
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Better Friendship Pity Remember Rich
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.
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Art Goodness Immoral Precise True Virtue
I have never known anyone worth a damn who wasn’t irascible.
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Myself Racism Worth
Religion I have defined as “Another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art”.
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Art Definition Failure Myself Popular Religion
Discoveries are made by gluttons and addicts. The man who forgets to eat and sleep has an appetite for fact, for interrelations among causes.
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Addiction Appetite Discover Fact
Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.
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Ability Existence Function Literature Main Writing
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
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.
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Artist Build Creation Equality Money World
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
Literature is news that stays news.
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Literature News One Liner Stay
The what is so much more important than how.
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Important Reason
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.
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Element Leaving Oneself Regular Rhyme
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 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.
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Attention Himself Page Popular Reading Secret Writing

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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Any general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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