This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
The intellect is a very nice whirligig toy, but how people take it seriously is more than I can understand.
Care | Individual | Order | Thought | Words | Think | Thought |
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.
Today, with the abundance of books available, it is the mark of a truly educated man to know what not to read. … Feed only on the best. As John Wesley’s mother counseled him: ‘Avoid whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, … increases the authority of the body over the mind.
Devil | Government | Men | Security | Government |
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
I would hold the rosy, slender fingers of the dawn for you.
Woman |
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism.
Any writer worth the name is always getting into one thing or getting out of another thing.
Not cheap politicians but statesmen are needed today. Not opportunists but men and women of principle must be demanded by the people. In this time of great stress and danger we must place [in office] only those dedicated to the preservation of our Constitution, our American Republic, and responsible freedom under God. “Oh, God, give us men with a mandate higher than the ballot box.”
The frontier of the higher life is everywhere contiguous to the common life, and we can cross the border at any moment. The higher life is as real as the grosser things in which we put our trust. But our eyes must be anointed so that we may see it.
Diversity | Enough | Freedom of thought | Freedom | Individual | Nothing | Receive | Religion | Respect | Right | Sacred | Thought | Will | Respect | Thought |
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
I have never known anyone worth a damn who wasn't irascible.
In a country of such recent civilization as ours, whose almost limitless treasures of material wealth invite the risks of capital and the industry of labor, it is but natural that material interests should absorb the attention of the people to a degree elsewhere unknown.
I was completely surrounded by religion from a young time. I was taught by my father. I engaged in discussions with him and many of these scholars who visited and came around the dining table, the lunch table, and attended many lectures with my dad. And so I learned the apprentice way.
Knowledge | Philosophy |
The peace that passeth understanding is that which comes when the pain is not relieved, which subsists in the midst of the painful situation, suffusing it, which springs out of the pain itself, which shimmers on the crest of the wave of pain, which is the spear of frustration transfigured into the shaft of light. It is upon those we love that we must anchor ourselves spiritually in the last moments. The sense of interconnectedness with them stands out vividly by way of contrast at the very moment when our mortal connection with them is about to be dissolved. And the intertwining of our life with theirs, the living in the life that is in them, is but a part of our living in the infinite manifold of the spiritual life. The thought of this, as apprehended, not in terms of knowledge, but in immediate experience, begets the peace that passeth understanding. And it is upon the bosom of that peace that we can pass safely out of the realm of time and space.
Future | Past | Problems | Thinkers | Thought | Warning | Thought |
There is a city to be built, the plan of which we carry in our heads, in our hearts. Countless generations have already toiled at the building of it. The effort to aid in completing it, with us, takes the place of prayer. In this sense we say, "Laborare est orare."
Daring | Life | Life | Man | Men | Present | Righteousness | Search | Theories | Thinkers | Thought | Time | Truth | Unity | Will | Woman | World | Youth | Youth | Learn | Thought |
Our duty is to feel what is great and love what is beautiful -- not to accept all the social conventions and the infamies they impose on us.
Woman |