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 WoodberryShakespeare has been praised in English more than anything mortal except poetry itself. Fame exhausts thought in his eulogy.
George Edward WoodberryWhat holy cities are to nomadic tribes โ a symbol of race and a bond of union โ great books are to the wandering souls of men: they are the Meccas of the mind.
George Edward WoodberryMuch of a poet's experience takes place in imagination only; the life he tells is oftenest the life that he strongly desires to live, and the power, the purity and height of his utterance may not seldom be the greater because experience here uses the voices of desire.
George Edward WoodberryOne can re-create what was in the mind of a mathematician a thousand years ago, recapture the truth of the intellect wherever it may have once come to light; but the image of art, that infinite variable of perception and expression in the individual, - that is not easily re-created, at least, not with certainty and in its original fulness.
George Edward Woodberry