I do not necessarily agree with every word transcribed in this post, as I have implied with previous "notes to self," but they are still worth brewing over from time to time. Sometimes it's what we disagree with most that provides us with the most inspiration, even though this isn't something I find disagreeable.

"1. Direct treatment of the 'thing' whether subjective or objective.
2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome."

"An 'Image' is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time."

"Don't use such an expression as 'dim lands OF PEACE.' It dulls the image. It mixes an abstraction with the concrete. It comes from the writer's not realizing that the natural object is always the ADEQUATE symbol."

- All attributed to Ezra Pound.

"A true noun, an isolated thing, does not exist in nature. Things are only the terminal points, or rather the meeting points, of actions, cross-sections cut through actions, snapshots. Neither can a pure verb, an abstract motion, be possible in nature. The eye sees the noun and verb as one: things in motion, motion in things..."

"The whole delicate substance of speech is built upon substrata of metaphor. Abstract terms, pressed by etymology, reveal their ancient roots still embedded in direct action. But the primitive metaphors do not spring from arbitrary SUBJECTIVE processes. They are possible only because they follow objective lines of relations in nature herself. Relations are more real and more important than the things which they relate. The forces which produce the branch-angles of an oak lay potent in the acorn. Similar lines of resistance, half-curbing the out-pressing vitalities, govern the branching of rivers and of nations. Thus a nerve, a wire, a roadway, and a clearing-house are only varying channels which communicate forces for itself. This is more than analogy, it is identity of structure."

- Ernest Fenollosa.

(This last bit is what I find myself disagreeing with the most. While I tend to emphasize the subjectivity of relations--the objects--Fenollosa seems adament that it is what connects these objects that is most important. I believe, and granted, I am no real voice more than any other voice, that each are interchangeable, that each pays tribute to the forces of nature. While many of these processes seem to have some system, some means of general comparison, there are those times when things happen in isolation. I guess one way to describe them would be anomalies. This is why I have been confused by much scientific thought, sociology specifically, for it tends to generalize as a means of eliminating the messy elements. The messy elements are what I find most interesting as a human being.)