George Edward Woodberry Quotes & Sayings (Page 3)

“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.”

“The poet craves emotion, and feeds the fire that consumes him, and only under this condition is he baptized with creative power.”

“Aesthetic freedom is like free speech; it is, indeed, a form of free speech.”

“I seldom deal in symbolisms; if there be hidden meanings in my verse, they are there without my knowledge.”

“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.”

“A nation's poets are its true owners; and by the stroke of the pen they convey the title-deeds of its real possessions to strangers and aliens.”

“I believe that ideal character in its perfection is potentially in every man who is born into the world.”

“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.”

“Words are intermediary between thought and things. We express ourselves really not through words, which are only signs, but through what they signify - through things.”

“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.”