William Empson Quotes

The man writes with such genuine passion for the books he's discussing. With so many critics you feel they're writing so people will say they're good critics.

It is the pain, it is the pain, endures.
Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through.
Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.

The waste even in a fortunate life, the isolation even of a life rich in intimacy, cannot but be felt deeply, and is the central feeling of tragedy. And anything of value must accept this because it must not prostitute itself; its strength is to be prepared to waste itself, if it does not get its opportunity.

Man, as the prying housemaid of the soul.

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.

It is this deep blankness is the real thing strange.
The more things happen to you the more you can't
Tell or remember even what they were. The contradictions cover such a range.
The talk would talk and go so far aslant.
You don't want madhouse and the whole thing there.

Feign then what's by a decent tact believed
And act that state is only so conceived,
And build an edifice of form
For house where phantoms may keep warm.

All those large dreams by which men long live well
Are magic-lanterned on the smoke of hell.

Attending there let us absorb the cultures of nations </br> And dissolve into our judgement all their codes. </br> Then, being clogged with a natural hesitation </br> (People are continually asking one the way out), </br> Let us stand here and admit that we have no road.

Being everything, let us admit that is to be something, </br> Or give ourselves the benefit of the doubt; </br> Let us offer our pinch of dust all to this God, </br> And grant his reign over the entire building.

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.

Not to have fire is to be a skin that shrills.

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.

But as to risings, I can tell you why.
It is on contradiction that they grow.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.
Up was the heartening and the strong reply
The heart of standing is we cannot fly.

Your rights reach down where all owners meet, in Hell's
Pointed exclusive conclave, at earth’s centre
(Your spun farm's root still on that axis dwells);
And up, through galaxies, a growing sector.