Compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome. Ezra Pound More Quotes by Ezra Pound More Quotes From Ezra Pound The author's conviction on this day of New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music; but this must not be taken as implying that all good music is dance music or all poetry lyric. Bach and Mozart are never too far from physical movement. Ezra Pound new-year music taken Any damn fool can be spontaneous. Ezra Pound spontaneous fool damn The critic who doesn't make a personal statement, in remeasurements he himself has made, is merely an unreliable critic. He is not a measurer but a repeater of other men's results. KRINO, to pick out for oneself, to choose. That's what the word means. Ezra Pound made men mean small talk comes from small bones Ezra Pound small-talk bones What thou lovest well remains. Ezra Pound elysium dross wells There are few things more difficult than to appraise the work of a man suddenly dead in his youth; to disentangle promise from achievement; to save him from that sentimentalizing which confuses the tragedy of the interruption with the merit of the work actually performed. Ezra Pound men death promise The real meditation is ... the meditation on one's identity. Ah, voilà une chose!! You try it. You try finding out why you're you and not somebody else. And who in the blazes are you anyhow? Ah, voilà une chose! Ezra Pound meditation real trying No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents. Ezra Pound reading writing book It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse. Ezra Pound optimistic fear writing A man of genius has a right to any mode of expression. Ezra Pound genius expression men Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work. Ezra Pound criticism attention men When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary. Ezra Pound business men two 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 reading power book A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations. Ezra Pound language literature age No teacher has ever failed from ignorance. That is empiric professional knowledge. Teachers fail because they cannot `handle the class.' Real education must ultimately be limited to men how INSIST on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding. Ezra Pound ignorance real teacher The man of understanding can no more sit quiet and resigned while his country lets its literature decay, and lets good writing meet with contempt, than a good doctor could sit quiet and contented while some ignorant child was infecting itself with tuberculosis under the impression that it was merely eating jam tarts. Ezra Pound letting-go country children The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity. Ezra Pound mediocrity historical art It is better to present one image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous work. Image...that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. Ezra Pound emotional intellectual lifetime Until you know who has lent what to whom, you know nothing whatever of politics, you know nothing whatever of history, you know nothing of international wrangles. Ezra Pound international knows A people that grows accustomed to sloppy writing is a people in the process of losing grip on its empire and on itself. Ezra Pound empires writing people
