Matthew Arnold Quotes

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Life is not having and getting, but being and becoming

Matthew Arnold

Life, Becoming, Life Is

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Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light.

Matthew Arnold

Hate, Passion, Light

"Culture and Anarchy" by Matthew Arnold, (Ch. I), 1869.

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How many minds--almost all the great ones--were formed in secrecy and solitude!

Matthew Arnold

Solitude, Mind, Secrecy

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If there ever comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known.

Matthew Arnold

Time, Together, World

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Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class.

Matthew Arnold

Class, Wealth, Middle

Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.816, Delphi Classics

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Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.

Matthew Arnold

Dance, History, Art And Culture

'Literature and Dogma' (1873) preface

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The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.

Matthew Arnold

Inspirational, Wisdom, Common Sense

God and the Bible: A Review of Objections to Literature and Dogma (1875)

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One thing only has been lent to youth and age in common--discontent.

Matthew Arnold

Age, Common, Youth

'Youth's Agitations' (1852)

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Resolve to be thyself: and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.

Matthew Arnold

Inspirational, Inspiring, Sadness

'Self-Dependence' (1852) l. 31

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Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things.

Matthew Arnold

Beautiful, Impressive, Poetry Is

Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.689, Delphi Classics

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Life is the application of noble and profound ideas to life.

Matthew Arnold

Ideas, Profound, Noble

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Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged; practice what you know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge.

Matthew Arnold

Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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Greatness is a spiritual condition.

Matthew Arnold

Spiritual, Greatness, Soul

Matthew Arnold (2016). “Culture and Anarchy”, p.14, BookRix

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And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well -- but 'tis not true!

Matthew Arnold

Self, Long, Trying

Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.168, Delphi Classics

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Force and right are the governors of this world; force till right is ready.

Matthew Arnold

World, Force, Ready

Matthew Arnold, Stefan Collini (1993). “Arnold: 'Culture and Anarchy' and Other Writings”, p.33, Cambridge University Press

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The difference between genuine poetry and the poetry of Dryden, Pope, and all their school, is briefly this: their poetry is conceived and composed in their wits, genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul.

Matthew Arnold

School, Differences, Soul

Essays in Criticism Second Series, "Thomas Gray" (1888)

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Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.

Matthew Arnold

Writing, Secret, Famous Writers

Quoted in G.W. E. Russell, Collections and Recollections (1898)

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I do not believe today everything I believed yesterday I wonder will I believe tomorrow everything I believe today.

Matthew Arnold

Believe, Yesterday, Today

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For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment.

Matthew Arnold

Writing, Men, Two

Essays in Criticism First Series, "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" (1865)

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Yes! in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone.

Matthew Arnold

Sea, Solitude, Thrown

'A Wish' (1867)

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Fate gave, what Chance shall not control, His sad lucidity of soul.

Matthew Arnold

Fate, Soul, Chance

Matthew Arnold (1869). “Poems: Dramatic and lyric poems”, p.141

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This strange disease of modern life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims.

Matthew Arnold

Life, Sick, Disease

'The Scholar-Gipsy' (1853) l. 201

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What actions are the most excellent? Those, certainly, which most powerfully appeal to the great primary human affections: to those elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are independent of time. These feelings are permanent and the same; that which interests them is permanent and the same also.

Matthew Arnold

Independent, Race, Feelings

Matthew Arnold, Robert Henry Super (1960). “On the Classical Tradition”, p.4, University of Michigan Press

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The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay ... More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us.

Matthew Arnold

Art, Destiny, Race

Matthew Arnold (1961). “Poetry and Criticism of Matthew Arnold”, Houghton Mifflin College Division

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Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals composing them are numerous, free, and active; but they are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity are employed in the service of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary man taken by himself.

Matthew Arnold

Taken, Men, Numbers

"Democracy" (1861)

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Born: December 24, 1822
Died: April 15, 1888
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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