It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
Ezra PoundRead
Speak against unconscious oppression, Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative, Speak against bonds.
Interpretation
The quote urges individuals to challenge and resist forms of oppression and conformity.
Ezra Pound's quote emphasizes the importance of speaking out against oppressive forces that limit creativity and innovation. It calls for a brave stance against the status quo, advocating for freedom of thought and expression. By resisting both unconscious oppression and the tyranny of unimaginative ideas, individuals play a crucial role in breaking free from constraints that stifle progress and individuality.
In practice
During a speech on social justice, this quote could highlight the need to challenge societal norms.
It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace, Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down. Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your elegance.
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever.
Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.
Violence will prevail over violence, only when someone can prove to me that darkness can be dispelled by darkness
To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern β and to take the jump and to stake everything on these values.
The guerrilla band is not to be considered inferior to the army against which it fights simply because it is inferior in fire power.
Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. Weβve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.
IΒ΄m not a wandering slave, I am a woman of choice
When the men kill, it is up to us women to fight for the preservation of life.
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