Quotes By Author: Ezra Pound

“The individual cannot think and communicate his thought, the governor and legislator cannot act effectively or frame his laws without words, and the solidity and validity of these words is in the care of the damned and despised litterati…when their very medium, the very essence of their work, the application of word to thing goes rotten, i.e. becomes slushy and inexact, or excessive or bloated, the whole machinery of social and of individual thought and order goes to pot.”

“L’artGreen arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth, Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.”

“Make-strong old dreams lest this our world lose heart”

“The Garden En robe de parade. – SamainLike a skein of loose silk blown against a wallShe walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,And she is dying piece-mealof a sort of emotional anaemia.And round about there is a rabbleOf the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.They shall inherit the earth.In her is the end of breeding.Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.She would like some one to speak to her,And is almost afraid that I will commit that indiscretion.”

“It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.”

“This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man.”

“Rhythm must have meaning.”

“With one day’s reading a man may have the key in his hands.”

“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.”

“Speak against unconscious oppression,Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,Speak against bonds.”