Henry Clay Quotes


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 Pound Books 410
And New York is the most beautiful city in the world? It is not far from it. No urban night is like the night there... Squares after squares of flame, set up and cut into the aether. Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will. Ezra Pound Poetry 186
A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him. Ezra Pound Freedom 106
The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism. Ezra Pound Racism 106
We do NOT know the past in chronological sequence. It may be convenient to lay it out anesthetized on the table with dates pasted on here and there, but what we know we know by ripples and spirals eddying out from us and from our own time. Ezra Pound Past 106
The secret of popular writing is never to put more on a given page than the common reader can lap off it with no strain whatsoever on his habitually slack attention. Ezra Pound Authors 105
There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and at forty-eight Ezra Pound Books 102
When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary. Ezra Pound Business 99
I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later. Ezra Pound Criticism 97
No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents. Ezra Pound Reading 96
Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance... poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music. Ezra Pound Poetry 92
The Image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy. Ezra Pound Image 92
No good poetry is ever written in a manner twenty years old, for to write in such a manner shows conclusively that the writer thinks from books, convention and clich?, not from real life. Ezra Pound Style 92
The intellect is a very nice whirligig toy, but how people take it seriously is more than I can understand. Ezra Pound Intelligence 92
Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market. Ezra Pound Authors 91
Somebody said that I am the last American living the tragedy of Europe. Ezra Pound American 89
Religion, oh, just another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art. Ezra Pound Art 88
The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people. Ezra Pound War 88
The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people. Ezra Pound Religion 87
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 Power 86
A civilized man is one who will give a serious answer to a serious question. Civilization itself is a certain sane balance of values. Ezra Pound Civilization 85
Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one. Ezra Pound Capacity 85
Wars are made to make debt. Ezra Pound War 85
Gloom and solemnity are entirely out of place in even the most rigorous study of an art originally intended to make glad the heart of man. Ezra Pound Art 85
It is more than likely that the brain itself is, in origin and development, only a sort of great clot of genital fluid held in suspense or reserved. This hypothesis would explain the enormous content of the brain as a maker or presenter of images. Ezra Pound Imagination 83
All my life I believed I knew something. But then one strange day came when I realized that I knew nothing; yes, I knew nothing. And so words became void of meaning. I have arrived too late at ultimate uncertainty. Ezra Pound Knowledge 81
AS A MIND, who the hell else is there left for me to take an interest IN?? Ezra Pound Fascism 81
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 Pound Artist 79
Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in ones hand. Ezra Pound Reading 77
If I could believe the Quakers banned music because church music is so damn bad, I should view them with approval. Ezra Pound Music 76
If a patron buys from an artist who needs money, the patron then makes himself equal to the artist; he is building art into the world; he creates. Ezra Pound Art 75
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries. Ezra Pound Economics 71
Speak against unconscious oppression, Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative, Speak against bonds. Ezra Pound Art 70
The art of letters will come to an end before A.D. 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity. Ezra Pound Art 68
But the one thing you should. not do is to suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY. Ezra Pound Art 68
I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown. Ezra Pound Suicide 67
A real building is one on which the eye can light and stay lit. Ezra Pound Architecture 66
A man of genius has a right to any mode of expression. Ezra Pound Genius 66
If the individual, or heretic, gets hold of some essential truth, or sees some error in the system being practiced, he commits so many marginal errors himself that he is worn out before he can establish his point. Ezra Pound Being 64
The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning an invention a discovery is of little worth. Ezra Pound Discovery 64
You let me throw the bricks through the front window. You go in at the back and take the swag. Ezra Pound Innovation 63
Man is an over-complicated organism. If he is doomed to extinction he will die out for want of simplicity. Ezra Pound Perception 62
A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness. Ezra Pound Books 58
I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them. Ezra Pound Madness 58
This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man. Ezra Pound Books 57
It is difficult to write a paradise when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse. It is obviously much easier to find inhabitants for an inferno or even a purgatorio. Ezra Pound Authors 57
Literature is news that STAYS news. Ezra Pound Literary 56
The jargon of these sculptors is beyond me. I do not know precisely why I admire a green granite female, apparently pregnant monster with one eye going around a square corner. Ezra Pound Art 56
Men do not understand books until they have a certain amount of life, or at any rate no man understands a deep book, until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents. Ezra Pound Amount 55
As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, when the hot water gives out or goes tepid, so is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, o my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady. Ezra Pound Passion 55

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Henry Clay Quotes

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