Zitate von Ezra Pound

„Regungslos war ich, Baum mitten im Wald // Und wusste die Wahrheit nie gesehener Dinge.“

—  Ezra Pound

aus The Tree, Poesie, Seite 36, Übersetzung: Nino Barbieri
Original engl.: "I stood still and was a tree amid the Wood. // Knowing the truth of things unseen before."

„Worte sind Blätter, alte braune Blätter im Frühling, // Ins Unbekannte fliegen sie auf der Suche nach einem Lied.“

—  Ezra Pound

aus Praise of Ysolt, Poesie, Seite 38, Übersetzung: Nino Barbieri
Original engl.: "The words are leaves, old brown leaves in the spring time // Blowing they know not whither, seeking a song."
Quelle: Ezra Pound, "Poesie", Newton & Compton editori s.r.l., Roma (1977), ISBN 88-8183-753-6

„Real education must ultimately be limited to one who INSISTS on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.“

—  Ezra Pound, buch ABC of Reading

Quelle: ABC of Reading (1934), Ch. 8

„Any general statement is like a cheque drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.“

—  Ezra Pound, buch ABC of Reading

Quelle: ABC of Reading (1934), p. 25

„No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents.“

—  Ezra Pound

„Literature is news that STAYS news.“

—  Ezra Pound, buch ABC of Reading

Quelle: ABC of Reading (1934), Ch. 2 (p. 29 in the 1961 paperback)

„There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and at forty-eight“

—  Ezra Pound

„The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet black bough.“

—  Ezra Pound

„How mean thy hates
Fostered in falsity“

—  Ezra Pound, The Cantos

Canto LXXXI
The Cantos
Kontext: How mean thy hates
Fostered in falsity
[... ]
Rathe to destroy, niggard in charity

„If a man have not order within him
He can not spread order about him“

—  Ezra Pound, The Cantos

Canto XIII
The Cantos
Kontext: If a man have not order within him
He can not spread order about him;
And if a man have not order within him
His family will not act with due order;
And if the prince have not order within him
He can not put order in his dominions.

„Without character you will
be unable to play on that instrument“

—  Ezra Pound, The Cantos

Canto XIII
The Cantos

„Who brought this to pass?
Who has brought the flaming imperial anger?
Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums?
Barbarous kings.
A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn,
A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom,
Three hundred and sixty thousand,
And sorrow, sorrow like rain.“

—  Ezra Pound

'Lament of the Frontier Guard' (From Cathay, 1915)

„And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass“

—  Ezra Pound

„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

Guide to Kulchur (1938), p. 55
Variante: Man reading shd. be man intensely alive. The book shd. be a ball of light in one's hand.

„Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.“

—  Ezra Pound

„A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.“

—  Ezra Pound

„I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.“

—  Ezra Pound

„The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.“

—  Ezra Pound

„If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good.“

—  Ezra Pound

As quoted after his arrest for treason; see Treason: the story of disloyalty and betrayal in American history http://books.google.com/books?id=lXZKAAAAMAAJ&q=%E2%80%9CIf+a+man+isn%27t+willing+to+take+some+risk+for+his+opinions,+either+his+opinions+are+no+good+or+he%27s+no+good%E2%80%9D&dq=%E2%80%9CIf+a+man+isn%27t+willing+to+take+some+risk+for+his+opinions,+either+his+opinions+are+no+good+or+he%27s+no+good%E2%80%9D&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RgacUteRAZDYoATC1IDYCg&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAjgU by Nathaniel Weyl (1950), p. 400