The voices / 49 fragments

Ezra Pound

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01Undated

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

Ezra Pound / quote

02Undated

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

Ezra Pound / quote

03Undated

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.

Ezra Pound / quote

04Undated

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

Ezra Pound / quote

05Undated

And round about there is a rabbleOf the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.They shall inherit the earth.

Ezra Pound / quote

06Undated

Literature is news which stays news.

Ezra Pound / quote

07Undated

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

Ezra Pound / quote

08Undated

And the good writer chooses his words for their 'meaning', but that meaning is not a a set, cut-off thing like the move of knight or pawn on a chess-board. It comes up with roots, with associations, with how and where the word is familiarly used, or where it has been used brilliantly or memorably.

Ezra Pound / quote

09Undated

Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. It doesn't matter whether the good writer wants to be useful, or whether the good writer wants to be harm.

Ezra Pound / quote

10Undated

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.

Ezra Pound / quote

11Undated

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 / quote

12Undated

With one day's reading a man may have the key in his hands.

Ezra Pound / quote

13Undated

Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing. The rest is mere sheep herding.

Ezra Pound / quote

14Undated

Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

Ezra Pound / quote

15Undated

Literature is news that stays news.

Ezra Pound / quote

16Undated

There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and at forty-eight

Ezra Pound / quote

17Undated

Listen to me, attend me!And I will breathe into thee a soul,And thou shalt live for ever.

Ezra Pound / quote

18Undated

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

Ezra Pound / quote

19Undated

A great spirit has been amongst us, and a great artist is gone.

Ezra Pound / quote

20Undated

No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents.

Ezra Pound / quote

21Undated

Music rots when it gets too far from the dance. Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music.

Ezra Pound / quote

22Undated

Love thou thy dreamAll base love scorning,Love thou the windAnd here take warningThat dreams alone can truly be,For 'tis in dream I come to thee.Ezra Pound, The Songtrad. Ungaretti:Ama il tuo sogno Ama il tuo sognoOgni inferiore amore disprezzando,Il vento amaEd accorgiti quiChe i sogni solo possono veramente essere,Perciò in sogno a raggiungerti m’avvio.

Ezra Pound / quote

23Undated

I once saw a small child go to an electric light switch as say, "Mamma, can I open the light?" She was using the age-old language of exploration, the language of art. It was a sort of metaphor, but she was not using it as ornamentation.

Ezra Pound / quote

24Undated

Great Literature is simply language charged to the utmost with meaning

Ezra Pound / quote