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Ezra Pound Quotes (1885-1972)
Poet, Musician
About Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound (October 30, 1885 – November 1, 1972) was an American expatriate poet, musician and critic who was a major figure of the Modernist movement in early to mid-20th century poetry. He was the driving force behind several Modernist movements including Imagism and Vorticism.
Best Ezra Pound Quotes
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Ezra Pound quotes.
“Make it new!”
“To be men not destroyers”
“Literature is news that STAYS news.”
“Pride, jealousy and possessiveness
3 pains of hell”
3 pains of hell”
“All other sins are open,
Usura alone not understood.”
Usura alone not understood.”
“"You damn sadist!" said mr. cummings,
"you try to make people think."”
"you try to make people think."”
“My worst mistake was the stupid suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism, all along.”
“It is better to present one image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous work.”
“It has been complained, with some justice, that I dump my note-books on the public.”
“Without character you will
be unable to play on that instrument”
be unable to play on that instrument”
“Image…that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.”
“The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough.”
“Real education must ultimately be limited to one who INSISTS on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.”
“Artists are the antennae of the race but the bullet-headed many will never learn to trust their great artists.”
Ezra Pound Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of Ezra Pound quotes by topic.
Ezra Pound on Books
“Literature is news that stays news.”
Ezra Pound on Literature
“Literature is news that stays news.”
Ezra Pound on Circe
“Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.”
Ezra Pound on Definition
“I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them.”
Ezra Pound on Thought
Ezra Pound on Genius
Ezra Pound on Reading
Ezra Pound on Winter
Ezra Pound on Hungary
“And I would rather have my sweet, Though rose-leaves die of grieving,Than do high deeds in Hungary To pass all men’s believing.”
Ezra Pound on Hope
“A man's hope measures his civilization. The attainability of the hope measures, or may measure, the civilization of his nation and time.”
What Ezra Pound Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Ezra Pound shared regarding contemporaries.
Ezra Pound on Luís de Camões 2 quotes
View all 2 quotes on Luís de Camões →Ezra Pound on Arnold Dolmetsch 2 quotes
“Has he tempered the viol’s wood To enforce both the grave and the acute? Has he curved us the bowl of the lute? Lawes and Jenkyns guard thy rest Dolmetsch ever be thy guest.”
Ezra Pound on Catullus
Ezra Pound on Walt Whitman
Ezra Pound on Winston Churchill
Ezra Pound on Joseph Stalin
Ezra Pound on Adolf Hitler
Ezra Pound on Arthur Golding
“Though it is the most beautiful book in the language, I am not citing it for decorative purposes but for the narrative quality.”
Ezra Pound on Alexander Pope
Ezra Pound on Benito Mussolini
“There is no doubt which I preferred between Mussolini and Roosevelt. In my radio broadcasts I spoke in favor of the economic construction of Fascism. Mussolini was a very human, imperfect character who lost his head.”
Ezra Pound on Edith Wharton
“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 on Gavin Douglas
“Gavin Douglas, set on a particular labour, with his mind full of Latin quantitative metre, attains a robuster versification than you are likely to find in Chaucer…the texture of Gavin's verse is stronger, the resilience greater.”
Ezra Pound on Women
“And she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anæmia. * * * * * In her is the end of breeding. Her boredom is exquisite and excessive. She would like some one to speak to her, And is almost afraid that I will commit that indiscretion.”
Ezra Pound on Lionel Johnson
“For two hours he talked of Gallifet; Of Dowson; of the Rhymers' Club; Told me how Johnson (Lionel) died By falling from a high stool in a pub... But showed no trace of alcohol At the autopsy, privately performed— Tissue preserved—the pure mind Arose toward Newman as the whiskey warmed.”
Ezra Pound on Walt Disney
“Take the serious side of Disney, the Confucian side of Disney. It's in having taken an ethos … where you have the values of courage and tenderness asserted in a way that everybody can understand. You have got an absolute genius there. You have got a greater correlation of nature than you have had since the time of Alexander the Great.”
Quotes About Ezra Pound
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Ezra Pound from others.
Hugh Kenner on Ezra Pound
“Hence "the serious artist," whom Pound describes in an early essay as the maintainer of the mental health of the state, has concerns identical with the serious philosopher, the serious ruler, the serious editor or publisher, the serious teacher. He keeps up values.”
Marilyn Chin Preface on Ezra Pound
“My early identity and love poems were influenced by the imagism of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams.”
T. S. Eliot on Ezra Pound
George Orwell on Ezra Pound
“Personally I admire several writers (Céline, for instance) who have gone over to the Fascists, and many others whose political outlook I strongly object to. But one has the right to expect ordinary decency of a poet. I never listened to Pound’s broadcasts, but I often read them in the B.B.C. Monitoring Reports, and they were intellectually and morally disgusting. Antisemitism, for instance, is simply not the doctrine of a grown-up person. People who go in for that kind of thing must take the consequences.”
Stanley Lombardo on Ezra Pound
“A musician once asked Ezra Pound if there was anywhere one could get all of poetry, in the sense that one could get all of music in Bach. Pound's response was that if a person would take the trouble really to learn Greek, he could get all of it, or nearly all of it, in Homer.”
Alicia Ostriker on Ezra Pound
Tim Redman on Ezra Pound
“Pound's ideas about Russian communism developed in two directions. First, he felt that there were basic similarities between the Russian and the fascist revolutions. Second, he felt a great deal of admiration for Lenin as a man of action in the mold of his hero, Mussolini (this was not an entirely accidental comparison, for the contemporary figure most admired by Mussolini was Lenin).”
Adrienne Rich on Ezra Pound
“Pound's fascism-crazed mind”
About Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound (October 30, 1885 – November 1, 1972) was an American expatriate poet, musician and critic who was a major figure of the Modernist movement in early to mid-20th century poetry. He was the driving force behind several Modernist movements including Imagism and Vorticism.