William Empson Quotes

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.

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.

Ripeness is all; her in her cooling planet
Revere; do not presume to think her wasted.
Project her no projectile, plan nor man it;
Gods cool in turn, by the sun long outlasted.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

The plain fact is that many of the reputations which today occupy the poetic limelight are such as would crumble immediately if poetry such as Empson's, with its passion, logic, and formal beauty, were to become widely known.

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.

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.

Johnson, Hazlitt and Empson are the greatest English critics of their respective centuries not least because they are the funniest.

Man, as the prying housemaid of the soul.

Hours before dawn we were woken by the quake.
My house was on a cliff. The thing could take
Bookloads off shelves, break bottles in a row.
Then the long pause and then the bigger shake.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.