Ezra Pound Quotes

A man’s hope measures his civilization. The attainability of the hope measures, or may measure, the civilization of his nation and time.
EZRA POUND

Himself Hope Man Measurement Nation Time
Why fight for a flag when you can buy one for a nickel.
EZRA POUND

Fight Flag Yourself
I did not enter into silence. Silence captured me.
EZRA POUND

Capture Myself Silence
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

Classic Definition Forever Fresh Rule Structure
The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet black bough.
EZRA POUND

Black Crowd Face Wet
The flavors of the peach and the apricot are not lost from generation to generation. Neither are they transmitted by book learning.
EZRA POUND

Book Generation Learning Lost Transmitted
A real building is one on which the eye can light and stay lit.
EZRA POUND

Build Eyes Light Reality Stay
Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market.
EZRA POUND

Marketing Print Worth Writing
Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will.
EZRA POUND

Ourselves Poetry Stars Willing
Artists are the antennae of the race.
EZRA POUND

Artist Race
The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.
EZRA POUND

Artist Beginning Discover Invention Worth
I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown.
EZRA POUND

Myself Oneself Suicide Thinking Unknown
The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language.
EZRA POUND

Human Language Sum Wisdom
What thou lovest well remains.
EZRA POUND

Love One Liner Remain
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.
EZRA POUND

Alive Ball Hands Intense Light One Liner Power Reading
If I could believe the Quakers banned music because church music is so damn bad, I should view them with approval.
EZRA POUND

Approval Ban Believe Music View
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.
EZRA POUND

Education Insist Limit Reality
From the colour the nature And by the nature the sign! Beatific spirits welding together As in one ash-tree in Ygdrasail.
EZRA POUND

Color Nature Togetherness Tree
Don’t be blinded by the theorists and a lying press.
EZRA POUND

Blind Lying Press Theory
Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work.
EZRA POUND

Attention Criticism Pay Work Writing
Speak against unconscious oppression, Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative, Speak against bonds.
EZRA POUND

Bond Imagination Oppression Talk
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.
EZRA POUND

Ability Existence Function Literature Main Writing
Genius is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one, and the man of talent sees two or three, plus the ability to register that multiple perception in the material of his art.
EZRA POUND

Ability Art Genius Himself Man Material Ordinary Perception Talent
A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations.
EZRA POUND

Age Greatness Time Translation
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.
EZRA POUND

Body Chemicals Death Limitation Moments Necessary
The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.
EZRA POUND

Action Curse Immediate Nation Sort Thinking
All great art is born of the metropolis.
EZRA POUND

Art Born Greatness Metropolis

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