The language of literature is the language of all the world. It is necessary to divest ourselves at once of the notion of diversified vocal and grammatical speech which constitutes the various tongues of the Earth, and conceals the identity of image and logic in the minds of all men.

George Edward Woodberry

Categorized in : Men Mind Identity

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

George Edward Woodberry

motivational-sports success inspirational

Always begin anew with the day, just as nature does. It is one of the sensible things that nature does.

George Edward Woodberry

nature sensible doe

I am quite sure that no friendship yields its true pleasure and nobility of nature without frequent communication, sympathy and service.

George Edward Woodberry

yield communication friendship

To feel that one has a place in life solves half the problem of contentment.

George Edward Woodberry

contentment half happiness

Thrashing is not the most noticeably awful of disappointments. Not to have attempted is the genuine disappointment.

George Edward Woodberry

genuine awful disappointment

The sweetest roamer is a boy's young heart.

George Edward Woodberry

heart boys son

Is there not an art, a music, and a stream of words that shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?

George Edward Woodberry

voice life art

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

faith inspirational life

The willingness to take risks is our grasp of faith.

George Edward Woodberry

willingness risk faith

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

liberty cities names

The world is a multiplicity, a harvest-field, a battle-ground; and thence arises through human contact ways of numbering, or mathematics, ways of tillage, or agriculture, ways of fighting, or military tactics and strategy, and these are incorporated in individuals as habits of life.

George Edward Woodberry

agriculture fighting military

"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

heartbroken broken-heart break-up

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

stars men thinking

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

race men book

Our understanding of Shakespeare already depends largely on the vitality of Renaissance elements in our education. Each man must live in his own generation, as the saying is; but the generations are bound together by the golden links of the great tradition of civilization.

George Edward Woodberry

understanding men civilization

A writer is justly called 'universal' when he is understood within the limits of his civilization, though that be bounded by a country or an age.

George Edward Woodberry

age civilization country

My first recollection of hearing Wendell Phillips is from my college days, though of course he was always one of my heroes, and I may have heard him before, for we were an anti-slavery family.

George Edward Woodberry

slavery college hero

One 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

light expression art

Education has really only one basic factor: one must want it.

George Edward Woodberry

factors want

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

George Edward Woodberry

enough promise ideas