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Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, spheres, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.

— Ezra Pound The Spirit of Romance (1910)

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Mathematics

More quotes by Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.

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

Jefferson and/or Mussolini (1935)

The ant's a centaur in his dragon world.

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.

Guide to Kulchur (1938)

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

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Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

Kenneth Boulding to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973)

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.

William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing.

Bertrand Russell

The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.

Núria Añó

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ezra Pound (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.