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The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity.

Ezra Pound

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Ezra Pound
Age: 87 †
Born: 1885
Born: October 30
Died: 1972
Died: November 1
Autobiographer
Composer
Economist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Radio Personality
Translator
Writer
Hailey
Idaho
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
Ezra Loomis Pound
Failures
Mediocrity
Historical
History
Art

More quotes by Ezra Pound

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Usura slayeth the child in the womb It stayeth the young man's courting It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth between the young bride and her bridegroom
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Poetry must be as well written as prose.
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Somebody said that I am the last American living the tragedy of Europe.
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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.
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Be not cheap or mediocre in desiring.
Ezra Pound
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See, they return ah, see the tentative Movements, and the slow feet, The trouble in the pace and the uncertain Wavering! See, they return, one, and by one, With fear, as half-awakened As if the snow should hesitate And murmur in the wind, and half turn back.
Ezra Pound
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The Image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.
Ezra Pound
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Science is unpoetic only to minds jaundiced with sentiment and romanticism . . . the great masters of the past boasted all they could of it and found it magical.
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In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
Ezra Pound
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Any general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.
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A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.
Ezra Pound
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Democracy is now currently defined in Europe as a 'country run by Jews,'
Ezra Pound
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The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing heatedly over which is the truth.
Ezra Pound
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If I could believe the Quakers banned music because church music is so damn bad, I should view them with approval.
Ezra Pound
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Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work.
Ezra Pound
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The serious artist must be as open as nature. Nature does not give all of herself in a paragraph. She is rugged and not set apart into discreet categories.
Ezra Pound
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small talk comes from small bones
Ezra Pound
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Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.
Ezra Pound
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There is natural ignorance and there is artificial ignorance. I should say at the present moment the artificial ignorance is about eighty-five per cent.
Ezra Pound
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Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.
Ezra Pound