Ezra Pound

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

The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace, Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down. Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your elegance.

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever.

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.

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

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.

Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.

All great art is born of the metropolis.

No picture is made to endure nor to live with but it is made to sell and sell quickly with usura, sin against nature, is thy bread ever more of stale rags is thy bread dry as paper.

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

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.

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

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

The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing heatedly over which is the truth.

With Usura With usura hath no man a house of good stone each block cut smooth and well fitting.

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

'Tis not need we know our every thought Or see the work shop where each mask is wrought Wherefrom we view the world of box and pit, Careless of wear, just so the mask shall fit And serve our jape's turn for a night or two.

Haie! Haie! These were the swift to harry; These the keen-scented; These were the souls of blood. Slow on the leash, pallid the leash-men!

Artists are the antennae of the race.

The rustling of the silk is discontinued, Dust drifts over the courtyard, There is not sound of footfall, and the leaves Scurry into heaps and lie still, And she the rejoicer of the heart is beneath them: A wet leaf that clings to the threshold.

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. (excerpt from 'The Garrett')