William Empson quotes
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“This world is good enough for me, if only I can be good enough for it.”
-- William Empson -
“I'm afraid I take ... this rather clinical view of love: it's saving you from madness. I'm not so enthusiastic as other poets have been.”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (2000). “The complete poems”, Lane, Allen
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“The machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry.”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (1966). “Seven Types of Ambiguity”, p.3, New Directions Publishing
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“Twixt devil and deep sea, man hacks his caves; Birth, death; one, many; what is true, and seems; Earth's vast hot iron, cold space's empty waves.”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (1984). “Collected poems”, Chatto & Windus
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“Shall I make it clear, boys, for all to apprehend, Those that will not hear, boys, waiting for the end, Knowing it is near, boys, trying to pretend, Sitting in cold fear, boys, waiting for the end?”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (2000). “The complete poems”, Lane, Allen
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“Buddhists and Christians contrive to agree about death Making death their ideal basis for different ideals. The Communists however disapprove of death Except when practical.”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (1984). “Collected poems”, Chatto & Windus
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“Liberal hopefulness Regards death as a mere border to an improving picture.”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (1984). “Collected poems”, Chatto & Windus
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“To produce pure proletarian art the artist must be at one with the worker; this is impossible, not for political reasons, but because the artist never is at one with any public.”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (1935). “Some Versions of Pastoral”, p.14, New Directions Publishing
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“All those large dreams by which men long live well Are magic-lanterned on the smoke of hell.”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (2000). “The complete poems”, Lane, Allen
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“The difficult part of good temper consists in forbearance, and accommodation to the ill-humors of others.”
-- William Empson -
“Life involves maintaining oneself between contradictions that can't be solved by analysis.”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (2000). “The complete poems”, Lane, Allen
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“Poets, on the face of it, have either got to be easier or to write their own notes; readers have either got to take more trouble over reading or cease to regard notes as pretentious and a sign of bad poetry”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (2000). “The complete poems”, Lane, Allen
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“Waiting for the end, boys, waiting for the end. What is there to be or do? What's become of me or you? Are we kind or are we true? Sitting two and two, boys, waiting for the end.”
-- William EmpsonSource : 1940 'Just a Smack at Auden'.
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“The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own.”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson, John Haffenden (1988). “The royal beasts and other works”
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“Poetry contains nothing haphazard.”
-- William Empson -
“Proust has listed a great many reasons why it is impossible to be happy, but, in the course of being happy, one finds it difficult to remember them.”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (1966). “Seven Types of Ambiguity”, p.249, New Directions Publishing
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“Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort nor the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.”
-- William EmpsonSource : 'Missing Dates' (1935)
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“Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men.”
-- William EmpsonSource : "Legal Fiction" l. 1 (1935)
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“It seems unpleasantly refined to put things off till someone knows.”
-- William EmpsonSource : William Empson (2000). “The complete poems”, Lane, Allen
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“The heart of standing is that you cannot fly.”
-- William Empson -
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