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.

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.

"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.

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

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.

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.

Shakespeare has been praised in English more than anything mortal except poetry itself. Fame exhausts thought in his eulogy.