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

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote critiques usury, the practice of lending money at exorbitant interest rates, highlighting its destructive impact on society and craftsmanship.

Ezra Pound's quote emphasizes the detrimental effects of usury on the quality of human life and societal structures. By suggesting that no one can have a well-constructed home when usury prevails, Pound draws a connection between economic practices and the integrity of communal living spaces, symbolizing the broader consequences of greed and exploitation on culture and craftsmanship.

Themes

UsuraMoneySocietyCraftsmanshipGreed

In practice

Example use cases

During a lecture on economic ethics, one might reference this quote to discuss the impact of usury on community welfare.

More from Ezra Pound

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

White shall not neutralize the black, nor good compensate bad in man, absolve him so; life's business being just the terrible choice.
Robert BrowningRead
Switzerland is a country where very few things begin, but many things end.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
Present wars impoverish the lords that win as much as those that lose.
Niccolo MachiavelliRead
Through fear of resembling one another, through horror of having to submit, through uncertainty as well, through skepticism and complexity, there is a multitude of individual little beliefs for the triumph of strange little individuals.
Andre GideRead
What makes Iago evil? Some people ask. I never ask.
Joan DidionRead
I have always played into the belief that you are only ever borrowing the jersey; you never own the jersey because someone has gone before you and there is going to be someone after you, so it's a case of giving the jersey maximum respect.
Brian O'DriscollRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.