Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever.
Ezra PoundMusic begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance... poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.
Ezra PoundAny general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.
Ezra PoundPoetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, 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