This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
And if the time should come when you are associated with groups that take delight in tearing down our American way of life, then they seem to enjoy pointing out the weaknesses of our free enterprise system – and it has weaknesses; it has weaknesses because it’s operated by men and women who are full of weaknesses – but when those times come, when our system is criticized, just keep in mind the fruits of the system, the great blessings that have come to us because of our American way of life. No group of people have ever attained the standard of living which is ours. And so let’s become acquainted with what has been accomplished. It’s all right to criticize; it’s all right to try and improve our American way of life; but in doing so, let’s not surrender, let’s not give up, let’s not jeopardize that system which has made America great.
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
You damn sadist! said mr. cummings, you try to make people think.
Only three routes of upward mobility were available to socially ambitious upstarts such as Columbus: war, the Church, and the sea. Columbus probably contemplated all three: he wanted a clerical career for one of his brothers, and fancied himself as a captain of cavaliers and conquests. But seafaring was a natural choice, especially for a boy from a maritime community as single-minded as that of Genoa. Opportunities for employment and profit abounded.
But the purified gladness of which I speak is not dependent on these accidents. It is the mark of the ripest wisdom, and is based on the conviction, gained through experience, that life is worth living, that the victory is assured, and that the ends we pursue are of such excellence as to be incapable of ultimate defeat.
One of Satan's greatest tools is pride: to cause a man or a woman to center so much attention on self that he or she becomes insensitive to his Creator or fellow beings. It is a cause for discontent, divorce, teenage rebellion, family indebtedness, and most other problems we face.
The Founding Fathers well understood human nature and its tendency to exercise unrighteous dominion when given authority. A Constitution was therefore designed to limit government to certain enumerated functions, beyond which was tyranny.
Battle | Blessings | Eternal | Freedom | Lord | Price | Righteousness | Govern |
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.
Balance | Civilization | Man | Will |
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
Adolf Hitler was a Jeanne d'Arc, a saint. He was a martyr. Like many martyrs, he held extreme views.
Light |
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
The image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
The Lake Isle: O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop, with the little bright boxes piled up neatly upon the shelves and the loose fragrant Cavendish and the shag, and the bright Virginia loose under the bright glass cases, and a pair of scales not too greasy, and the whores dropping in for a word or two in passing, for a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit. O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, lend me a little tobacco-shop, or install me in any profession save this damnÂ’d profession of writing, where one needs oneÂ’s brains all the time.
I believe that God has endowed men with certain inalienable rights as set forth in the Declaration of Independence and that no legislature and no majority, however great, may morally limit or destroy these; that the sole function of government is to protect life, liberty, and property, and anything more than this is usurpation and oppression. I believe that the Constitution of the United States was prepared and adopted by men acting under inspiration from Almighty God; that it is a solemn compact between the peoples of the states of this nation that all officers of government are under duty to obey; that the eternal moral laws expressed therein must be adhered to or individual liberty will perish. . . I am hereby resolved that under no circumstances shall the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights be infringed. In particular I am opposed to any attempt on the part of the federal government to deny the people their right to bear arms, to worship, and to pray when and where they choose, or to own and control private property.
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
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.
Little |
Of the origin of things we know nothing, and can know nothing. Perfection does not reveal itself to us as existent in the beginning; but as something that ought to be, something new which we are to help create. Somehow the secret of the universe is hidden in our breast. Somehow the destinies of the universe depend upon our exertions.
The consolations of the moral ideal are vigorous. They do not encourage idle sentiment. They recommend to the sufferer action. Our loss, indeed, will always remain loss, and no preaching or teaching can ever make it otherwise. But the question is whether it shall weaken and embitter, or strengthen and purify us, and lead us to raise to the dead we mourn a monument in our lives that shall be better than any pillared chapel or storied marble tomb. The criterion of all right relations whatsoever is that we are helped by them. And so, too, the criterion of right relations to the dead is that we are helped, not weakened and disabled, by them.
Humanity | Meaning | Pain | Price | Progress | Right | Wrong | Learn |
Humility responds to God's will-to the fear of His judgments and to the needs of those around us. To the proud, the applause of the world rings in their ears; to the humble, the applause of heaven warms their hearts. Someone has said, "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man."
Boys | Children | Church | Desire | Family | Future | Giving | Hope | Man | Men | Mission | Prayer | Principles | Reading | Religion | Will | Old |
I've spoken with friends who are rabbis and priests and we've agreed that most people have an emotional attachment to their faith, a desire to fulfill their spiritual longings, but they are not experts in understanding the history of their religion.
People | Responsibility | Truth |