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

Ezra Pound Literature See all quotes by Ezra Pound →

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“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.”

“Genius is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.”

“Hang it all, Robert Browning, there can be but the one "Sordello."”

“The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.”

“Winter is icumen in,Lhude sing Goddamm,Raineth drop and staineth slop,And how the wind doth ramm!   Sing: Goddamm.”

“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.”

Resonant Thoughts

"If there is a sense of reality, there must also be a sense of possibility. To pass freely through open doors, it is necessary to respect the fact that they have solid frames. This principle, by which …"

— Robert Musil

Philosophy1880–1942

#wisdom

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nur…"

— Isaac Asimov

Science1920–1992

#knowledge

"Whatever capacities there may be for enjoyment or for suffering in this strange being of ours, and God only knows what they are, they will be drawn out wholly in accordance with character."

— Mark Hopkins (educator)

Politics

#philosophy

"The suggestion was that a positive energy proof for general relativity could be gotten by restricting supergravity to its bosonic sector, which is general relativity."

— Lee Smolin

Philosophy1955

#family