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The man of understanding can no more sit quiet and resigned while his country lets literature decay than a good doctor could sit quiet and contented while some ignorant child was infecting itself with tuberculosis under the impression that it was merely eating jam tarts.

— Ezra Pound ABC of Reading (1934)

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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.

All Ezra Pound quotes →

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.