Quotes & anectdotes from the wise, the foolish, the courageous & the drunk

Ezra Pound Poet

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United States
  • Born: Oct 30, 1885
  • Died: Nov 1, 1972

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an expatriate American poet and critic who was a major figure of the early modernist movement. His contribution to poetry began with his development of Imagism, a movement derived from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision and economy of language. His best-known works include Ripostes, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley and the unfinished 120-section epic, The Cantos.

Working in London in the early 20th century as foreign editor of several American literary magazines, Pound helped discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Robert Frost and Ernest Hemingway. He was responsible for the 1915 publication of Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and the serialization from 1918 of Joyce's Ulysses. Hemingway wrote of him in 1925: "He defends [his friends] when they are attacked, he gets them into magazines and out of jail. ... He introduces them to wealthy women. He gets publishers to take their books. He sits up all night with them when they claim to be dying ... he advances them hospital expenses and dissuades them from suicide."

Religion, oh, just another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art. religion

When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary. business & men

A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations. aging

Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance... poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music. music & poetry

The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people. war

Colloquial poetry is to the real art as the barber's wax dummy is to sculpture. poetry

I could I trust starve like a gentleman. It's listed as part of the poetic training, you know. trust

Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding. education

Mother's Day May 12, 2025

Motherhood: All love begins and ends there. 22 quotes from Robert Browning

22 quotes from Robert Browning

A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories. 53 quotes from Honore de Balzac

53 quotes from Honore de Balzac

With what price we pay for the glory of motherhood. 5 wisdom & wit from Isadora Duncan

5 wisdom & wit from Isadora Duncan

The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart. 58 other sayings from Henry Ward Beecher

58 other sayings from Henry Ward Beecher