It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
Ezra PoundRead
Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing should prioritize truthful expression above all else.
Ezra Pound's quote emphasizes that the primary moral obligation of a writer is to ensure that their statements are fundamentally accurate. For Pound, the integrity of writing lies in its authenticity and truthfulness, suggesting that all other considerations, such as style or emotional appeal, should take a backseat to the accuracy of the information being conveyed.
Themes
AccuracyWritingMoralityTruthExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In a workshop on creative writing, this quote can be used to stress the importance of keeping facts straight.
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
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The modern artist... is working and expressing an inner world - in other words - expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces.
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So, then, the best of the historian is subject to the poet; for whatsoever action or faction, whatsoever counsel, policy, or war-stratagem the historian is bound to recite, that may the poet, if he list, with his imitation make his own, beautifying it both for further teaching and more delighting, as it pleaseth him; having all, from Danteβs Heaven to his Hell, under the authority of his pen.
Philip SidneyRead
Poets are never allowed to be mediocre by the gods, by men or by publishers.
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I never was very capable of expressing my feelings or emotions in words. I don't know whether this is the cause why I did it in music and also why I did it in painting. Or vice versa: That I had this way as an outlet. I could renounce expressing something in words.
Arnold SchoenbergRead
I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.
Don DelilloRead