“If we confine our attention entirely to the slang of the day, we get to think the world is progressing when it is only repeating itself.”

Warning against mistaking novelty of language for genuine novelty of thought. · Speech, The Uses of Reading, 1912

• History
• Language
• Modernity

“Verse-writing in the year 1920 is a professional occupation.”

Opens his survey by treating poetry as a career, not a vocation only · Book, Some Contemporary Poets, 1920

• Modernity
• Poetry
• Profession

“One cannot spend one's time in being modern when there are so many more important things to be.”

A refusal to treat novelty as a vocation · Letter, as commonly cited

• Modernity
• Poetry
• Purpose

“It is now at last absolutely necessary for the fetters of stereotyped poetic language to be shaken off.”

A manifesto demand that verse leave inherited jargon behind · Essay, The Future of Poetry, The Poetry Review, 1912

• Language
• Modernity
• Poetry

“I have to find a time to live.”

Original: Il faut être absolument moderne: il faut être absolument moderne. Il faut être absolument moderne. — Rimbaud’s closing movement turns away from poetic illusion towards the difficult necessity of living in the present. · A Season in Hell, Farewell, 1873 (French)

• Action
• Life
• Modernity

“All history is modern history.”

Insists that the past is always read from the present · Adagia, notebook aphorisms

• History
• Modernity
• Time

“The new has irresistible attractions only for minds that demand their greatest excitement from mere change.”

Original: Le nouveau n'a d'attraits irrésistibles que pour les esprits qui demandent au simple changement leur excitation maxima. — A sceptical view of novelty as a source of stimulation rather than genuine improvement. · Commerce (French)

• Change
• Modernity
• Novelty

“Like the composers of the day I believe not in the old ideals but in new methods of expression.”

Aligning verse with modernist experiment · Instead of a Preface, My Rubaiyat

• Innovation
• Modernity
• Poetry

“Here is contemporary literature, waiting for its criticism; where are the professors of literature?”

A memorable challenge to academics whom he believed were neglecting the literature of their own time. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Criticism
• Literature
• Modernity

“One must be absolutely modern.”

Original: Il faut être absolument moderne. — A stark call to confront the present rather than retreat into inherited forms, consolations or conventions. · A Season in Hell, Adieu, 1873 (French)

• Change
• Courage
• Modernity

“Modern life moves with a frantic momentum, making the reflective space of poetry more essential than ever.”

Pointing to poetry as a necessary antidote to the speed and noise of the modern era · Journal entry

• Modernity
• Poetry
• Reflection

“Our fathers valued change for the sake of its results; we value it in the act.”

Contrasting a modern appreciation for process with an older focus on outcome · Essay or conversation (commonly attributed)

• Change
• Modernity
• Tradition

“Nothing is good save the new.”

A modernist credo valuing originality above all · Letter to Harriet Monroe (as commonly attributed)

• Innovation
• Modernity
• Originality

“To see the gods dispelled in mid-air and dissolve like clouds is one of the great human experiences.”

Calls the loss of the gods a decisive modern experience, not a mere absence · Essay, Two or Three Ideas

• Disillusionment
• Gods
• Modernity

“The first principles of our Futurism are: to forget God, Heaven, Hell, Personal Immortality, and to remember, always, the earth.”

Turns his hope for new verse toward earthly attention rather than afterlife · Essay developing The Future of Poetry, Poetry and Drama period

• Earth
• Modernity
• Religion

“The world will not stand still for us.”

A reminder that people must adapt as society changes · Essay, The Heart of the New Thought

• Adaptation
• Change
• Modernity

“Picturesqueness is a lost art. We may expect at anytime to hear that a collar ad is blazing its electric lights atop of the largest pyramid.”

Lamenting the erosion of beauty and romance by modern commerce · Essay or column (commonly attributed)

• Art
• Beauty
• Modernity

“The trend of modern poetry, as we have remarked before, is quite away from the song.”

A critic’s regret that contemporary verse had left singing behind · Essay, Saturday Review of Literature, 1930

• Modernity
• Music
• Poetry

“A man who has a job, earns his living and can devote an hour a day to reading is lost to books when that hour is consumed by trivialities.”

Original: L'homme qui a un emploi, l'homme qui gagne sa vie et qui peut consacrer une heure par jour à la lecture, cette heure est dévorée par les affaires criminelles, les niaiseries incohérentes, les ragots et les faits les moins divers. — Valéry laments the competition between serious reading and the relentless stream of trivial information. · Regards sur le monde actuel (French)

• Books
• Modernity
• Reading