[On Ezra Pound:] A village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not.

In a war everybody always knows all about Switzerland, in peace times it is just Switzerland but in war time it is the only country that everybody has confidence in, everybody.

There are of course people who are more important than others in that they have more importance in the world but this is not essential and it ceases to be. I have no sense of difference in this respect because every human being comprises the combination form.

There is no passion more dominant and instinctive in the human spirit than the need of the country to which one belongs.... The time comes when nothing in the world is so important as a breath of one's own particular climate. If it were one's last penny it would be used for that return passage.

The subject matter of art is life, life as it actually is; but the function of art is to make life better.

I cannot write too much upon how necessary it is to be completely conservative that is particularly traditional in order to be free.

It is always a mistake to be plain-spoken.