Ezra Pound Quotes About Literature

Quotes about: Literature

• Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.

  Ezra Pound

  Men, Ordinary, Genius

  Jefferson and/or Mussolini ch. 23 (1935)

• Literature is news that stays news.

  Ezra Pound

  Book, Inspiration, Reading

  The ABC of Reading ch. 2 (1934)

• Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance... poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.

  Ezra Pound

  Dance, Literature, Atrophy

  ABC of Reading (1934) "Warning"

• Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

  Ezra Pound

  Inspirational, Hygiene, Degrees

  How to Read pt. 2 (1931)

• In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.

  Ezra Pound

  Inability, Literature, Pounds

  Ezra Pound (1952). “Guide to Kulchur”, p.196, New Directions Publishing

• A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations.

  Ezra Pound

  Age, Literature, Language

  John Patrick Sullivan, Ezra Pound, Sextus Propertius (1964). “Ezra Pound and Sextus Propertius: a study in creative translation”

• And New York is the most beautiful city in the world? It is not far from it. No urban night is like the night there... Squares after squares of flame, set up and cut into the aether. Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will.

  Ezra Pound

  Beautiful, New York, Stars

• Religion I have defined as "Another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art".

  Ezra Pound

  Art, Religion, Atheism

  "Ezra Pound's Poetry and Prose: Contributions to Periodicals". Volume 10,

• I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown.

  Ezra Pound

  Suicide, Suicidal, Literature

• Wars are made to make debt.

  Ezra Pound

  War, Debt, Literature

  Ezra Pound (1978). “"Ezra Pound Speaking": Radio Speeches of World War II”, Greenwood Press

• I have never known anyone worth a damn who wasn't irascible.

  Ezra Pound

  Literature, Pounds, Damn

  Ezra Pound (1950). “The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941”, p.111, New Directions Publishing

• Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market.

  Ezra Pound

  Literature, Pay, Printing

• 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

  Men, Civilization, Giving

  Ezra Pound (1952). “Guide to Kulchur”, p.137, New Directions Publishing

• The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.

  Ezra Pound

  Artist, Doe, Literature

• If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.

  Ezra Pound

  Decay, Literature, Rehabilitation

  Ezra Pound, Michael Dirda (2010). “ABC of Reading”, p.32, New Directions Publishing

• Somebody said that I am the last American living the tragedy of Europe.

  Ezra Pound

  Europe, Tragedy, Literature

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

  Ezra Pound

  History, Literature, Checks

  ABC of Reading (1934) ch. 1

• The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people.

  Ezra Pound

  People, Church, Literature

• Colloquial poetry is to the real art as the barber's wax dummy is to sculpture.

  Ezra Pound

  Art, Real, Sculpture

• If the individual, or heretic, gets hold of some essential truth, or sees some error in the system being practiced, he commits so many marginal errors himself that he is worn out before he can establish his point.

  Ezra Pound

  Errors, Essentials, Literature

• I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.

  Ezra Pound

  Writing, Criticism, Literature

  Ezra Pound (1991). “Ezra Pound's Poetry and Prose: 1920-1927, C522-C599a”

• The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism.

  Ezra Pound

  Mistake, Stupid, Race

  1968 Remark to Allen Ginsberg, 7 Jun. Quoted in H Carpenter A Serious Character (1988), pt.5.

• The man of understanding can no more sit quiet and resigned while his country lets its literature decay, and lets good writing meet with contempt, than a good doctor could sit quiet and contented while some ignorant child was infecting itself with tuberculosis under the impression that it was merely eating jam tarts.

  Ezra Pound

  Letting Go, Country, Children

  "Confucius to Cummings: An Anthology of Poetry".

• 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

  Vacuums, Doe, Use

• As for literature It gives no man a sinecure. And no one knows, at sight, a masterpiece. And give up verse, my boy, There's nothing in it.

  Ezra Pound

  Giving Up, Boys, Men

  'Hugh Selwyn Mauberley' (1920) 'Mr Nixon'

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