Quotes by William Empson - Page 1

Poetry contains nothing haphazard.
William Empson / Literary Critic
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The heart of standing is you cannot fly.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Standing
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My heart pumps yet the poison draught of you.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Draught
Poison
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The heart of standing is that you cannot fly.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Heart
Standing
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Waiting for the end, boys, waiting for the end.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Waiting
End
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Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Men
Law
Long
Stakes
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The machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Art
Poetry
Roots
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It seems unpleasantly refined to put things off till someone knows.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Knows
Refined
Seems
Till
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This world is good enough for me, if only I can be good enough for it.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Be Good
Good Enough
World
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Liberal hopefulness Regards death as a mere border to an improving picture.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Borders
Hopefulness
Regard
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Life involves maintaining oneself between contradictions that can't be solved by analysis.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Analysis
Contradiction
Maintaining
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All those large dreams by which men long live well Are magic-lanterned on the smoke of hell.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Dream
Men
Long
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The difficult part of good temper consists in forbearance, and accommodation to the ill-humors of others.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Accommodations
Difficult
Forbearance
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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 Empson / Literary Critic
Poetry
Literature
Views
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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 Empson / Literary Critic
Different
Literature
People
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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 Empson / Literary Critic
Failure
Blood
Effort
Poison
Remains
Waste
Fills
Slowly
Nor
Stream
Tires
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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 Empson / Literary Critic
Men
Iron
Sea
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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 Empson / Literary Critic
Impossible
Reason Why
Remember
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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 Empson / Literary Critic
Buddhist
Christian
Different
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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 Empson / Literary Critic
Art
Impossible
Political
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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 Empson / Literary Critic
Boys
Two
Waiting
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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 Empson / Literary Critic
Boys
Knowing
Waiting
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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 Empson / Literary Critic
Faces
Reading
Writing
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I think many people (like myself) prefer to read poetry mixed with prose; it gives you more to go by; the conventions of poetry have been getting far off from normal life, so that to have a prose bridge makes reading poetry seem more natural.
William Empson / Literary Critic
Bridges
Reading
Thinking
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William Empson Quotes - Page 1

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