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You must find the ideas that have some promise in them... It is not enough to just have ideas.

George Edward Woodberry

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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
Enough
Must
Promise
Ideas
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More quotes by George Edward Woodberry

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Always begin anew with the day, just as nature does. It is one of the sensible things that nature does.
George Edward Woodberry
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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
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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
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The willingness to take risks is our grasp of faith.
George Edward Woodberry
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Who of English speech, bred to the traditions of his race, does not recognize Hamlet in his 'inky cloak' at a glance? Not to know him would argue one's self untaught in the chief glories of his language.
George Edward Woodberry
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The growth of art seems to be in cycles, and often its vigorous lifetime is restricted to a century or two. The periods of distinctive drama, Greek, English, Spanish, fall within such a limit the schools of painting and sculpture likewise and, in poetry, the Victorian age or the school of Pope will serve as examples.
George Edward Woodberry
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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
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I believe that ideal character in its perfection is potentially in every man who is born into the world.
George Edward Woodberry
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It is not meant that the artist, in arriving at truth, must follow the way of the scientist, or, in stating it, the way of the philosopher.
George Edward Woodberry
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If the aristocracy of the whole white race is so to melt in a world of the colored races of the Earth, I for one should only rejoice in such a divine triumph of the sacrificial idea in history for it would mean the humanization of mankind.
George Edward Woodberry
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Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.
George Edward Woodberry
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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
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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
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You may name a bronze statue 'Liberty,' or a painted figure in a city hall 'Commerce,' or a marble form in a temple 'Athene' or 'Venus' but what is really there is only a representation of a single woman.
George Edward Woodberry
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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
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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
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Agitation is that part of our intellectual life where vitality results there ideas are born, breed and bring forth.
George Edward Woodberry
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Education has really only one basic factor: one must want it.
George Edward Woodberry
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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
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Thrashing is not the most noticeably awful of disappointments. Not to have attempted is the genuine disappointment.
George Edward Woodberry