Quote

The Greeks, those originators of the intellectual life, fixed for us the idea of the poet. He was a divine man more sacred than the priest, who was at best an intermediary between men and the gods, but in the poet the god was present and spoke.

George Edward Woodberry

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

George Edward Woodberry
Age: 74 †
Born: 1855
Born: May 12
Died: 1930
Died: January 2
Biographer
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
the United States of America
George E. Woodberry
Poet
Spokes
Divine
Spoke
Present
Priests
Idea
Greek
Best
Fixed
Originators
Ideas
Gods
Intermediary
Men
Sacred
Greeks
Life
Intellectual
Priest

More quotes by George Edward Woodberry

Image
To realize life in the abstract as noble or beautiful or humane, to set it forth so with radiance upon it, that is civilization in the arts. Shakespeare is the chief modern example of this supreme faculty of mankind.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
Thrashing is not the most noticeably awful of disappointments. Not to have attempted is the genuine disappointment.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
Shakespeare is, essentially, the emanation of the Renaissance. The overflow of his fame on the Continent in later years was but the sequel of the flood of the Renaissance in Western Europe. He was the child of that great movement, and marks its height as it penetrated the North with civilization.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
We foresee no limit to scientific advancement in the future, and in scientific truth there is nothing dead science is always a living and growing body of knowledge but art on the contrary has many times run its course to an end, and exhausted its vital power.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
The school of life embodies a compulsory education that no man escapes.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. Murphy's First Corollary If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
What holy cities are to nomadic tribes — a symbol of race and a bond of union — great books are to the wandering souls of men: they are the Meccas of the mind.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
Old times never come back and I suppose it's just as well. What comes back is a new morning every day in the year, and that's better.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
The critic is genius at one remove he is not unlike an actor on the stage, and incarnates in his mind, as the actor embodies in his person, another's work only thus does he understand art, realize it, know it and having arrived at this, his task is done.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
A marvellous power of expression over language often distinguishes genius but Shakespeare in his phrases seems independent of the bonds of language as of the bonds of metre.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
What faith in man must in our new world beat, Thinking how once he saw before his face The west and all the host of stars retreat Into the silent infinite of space!
George Edward Woodberry
Image
Art is expression what is expressed is often the vision of a subtle and powerful soul, and also his experience with his vision and however vivid and skilful he may be in the means of expression, yet it is frequently found that the master-spell in his work is something felt to be indefinable and inexpressible.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
The poet craves emotion, and feeds the fire that consumes him, and only under this condition is he baptized with creative power.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
Always begin anew with the day, just as nature does. It is one of the sensible things that nature does.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
Is there not an art, a music, and a stream of words that shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?
George Edward Woodberry
Image
You must find the ideas that have some promise in them... It is not enough to just have ideas.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
The willingness to take risks is our grasp of faith.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
If you can't have faith in what is held up to you for faith, you must find things to believe in yourself, for a life without faith in something is too narrow a space to live.
George Edward Woodberry
Image
Art does not, like science, set forth a permanent order of nature, the enduring skeleton of law. Two factors primarily determine its works: one is the idea in the mind of the artist, the other is his power of expression and both these factors are extremely variable.
George Edward Woodberry