It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
Ezra PoundRead
Artists are the antennae of the race.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Artists are sensitive to the emotions and experiences of humanity, capturing and reflecting them through their work.
Ezra Pound's quote suggests that artists play a crucial role in society by being attuned to the collective consciousness and feelings of humanity. They act as receptors, picking up on the underlying sentiments and truths of the world around them, and translating these into their creative expressions. This sensitivity allows them to communicate profound ideas and emotions, serving as a voice for both individual and shared experiences.
Themes
ArtistsSensitivityExpressionCreativityHumanity
In practice
Example use cases
During a gallery opening, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of the artist's role in society.
More from Ezra Pound
All quotes βThe 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.
Ezra PoundRead
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever.
Ezra PoundRead
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 PoundRead
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
Ezra PoundRead
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 PoundRead
Similar quotes
I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?
Rita DoveRead
The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. Paintings of Moreau are paintings of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet bring our mind into contact with the eternal wisdom; Plato's world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.
James JoyceRead
He has Van Gogh's ear for music.
Billy WilderRead
It doesn't matter if your lead character is good or bad. He just has to be interesting, and he has to be good at what he does.
David ChaseRead
Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.
Alan RickmanRead
The writing of the Beatles, or John and Paul's contribution to the Beatles in the late sixties - had a kind of depth to it, a more mature, more intellectual approach. We were different people, we were older. We knew each other in all kinds of different ways than when we wrote together as teenagers and in our older twenties.
John LennonRead