Matthew Arnold Quotes - Page 9

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The kings of modern thought are dumb.

Matthew Arnold

Kings, Dumb, Modern

Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.282, Delphi Classics

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The nice sense of measure is certainly not one of Nature's gifts to her English children ... we have all of us yielded to infatuation at some moment of our lives.

Matthew Arnold

Children, Nice, Infatuation

Matthew Arnold (1973). “Complete Prose Works: English literature and Irish politics”

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Inequality has the natural and necessary effect, under the present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class.

Matthew Arnold

Class, Justice, Diversity

Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.814, Delphi Classics

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Poetry interprets in two ways: it interprets by expressing, with magical felicity, the physiognomy and movements of the outward world; and it interprets by expressing, with inspired conviction, the ideas and laws of the inward world of man's moral and spiritual nature. In other words, poetry is interpretative both by having natural magic in it, and by having moral profundity.

Matthew Arnold

Spiritual, Men, Law

Matthew Arnold (1875). “Essays in Criticism”, p.128, London : [s.n.]

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Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men conceal'd
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
I knew they lived and moved
Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest
Of men, and alien to themselves - and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!

Matthew Arnold

Life, Heart, Men

Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.167, Delphi Classics

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Saw life steadily and saw it whole.

Matthew Arnold

Life, Saws, Whole Life

Lines on Sophocles in 'To a Friend' (1849)

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But the idea of science and systematic knowledge is wanting to our whole instruction alike, and not only to that of our business class ... In nothing do England and the Continent at the present moment more strikingly differ than in the prominence which is now given to the idea of science there, and the neglect in which this idea still lies here; a neglect so great that we hardly even know the use of the word science in its strict sense, and only employ it in a secondary and incorrect sense.

Matthew Arnold

Education, Lying, Science

Matthew Arnold, George William Erskine Russell, Thomas Burnett Smart (1904). “The Works of Matthew Arnold”

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Calm soul of all things! make it mine To feel, amid the city's jar, That there abides a peace of thine, Man did not make, and cannot mar! The will to neither strive nor cry, The power to feel what others give! Calm, calm me more! nor let me die Before I have begun to live.

Matthew Arnold

Peace, Men, Cities

'Lines written in Kensington Gardens' (1852)

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What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for Beauty to forego her wreath? Yes; but not this alone.

Matthew Arnold

Eye, Age, Wreaths

Matthew Arnold (1867). “New Poems”, p.143

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Hither and thither spins The wind-borne mirroring soul, A thousand glimpses wins, And never sees a whole.

Matthew Arnold

Winning, Wind, Soul

Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.95, Delphi Classics

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Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.

Matthew Arnold

America, Justice, Our Society

Culture and Anarchy preface (1869)

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And amongst us one, Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne.

Matthew Arnold

Intellectual, Suffering, Thrones

Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.241, Delphi Classics

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Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said!

Matthew Arnold

Bed, Creeps, Said

'The Last Word' (1867)

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Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion--the passion for sweetness and light. It has one even yet greater, the passion for making them all prevail. It is not satisfied till we all come to a perfect man; it knows that the sweetness and light of the few must be imperfect until the raw and unkindly masses of humanity are touched with sweetness and light.

Matthew Arnold

Hate, Passion, Men

Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.790, Delphi Classics

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Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron 's struggle cease.

Matthew Arnold

Struggle, Sleep, Long

Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.160, Delphi Classics

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Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye.

Matthew Arnold

Eye, Whales, Sailing

'The Forsaken Merman' (1849) l. 43

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It is not in the outward and visible world of material life that the Celtic genius of Wales or Ireland can at this day hope to count for much; it is in the inward world of thought and science.What it has been, what is has done, what it will be or will do, as a matter of modern politics.

Matthew Arnold

Inward, Genius, Done

1867 'On the Study of Celtic Literature'

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To the Bible men will return; and why? Because they cannot do without it.

Matthew Arnold

Men, Return

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Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep; Where the spent lights quiver and gleam; Where the salt weed sways in the stream.

Matthew Arnold

Weed, Light, Wind

'The Forsaken Merman' (1849) l. 35

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Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, Light half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd, Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill'd; For whom each year we see Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?

Matthew Arnold

Disappointment, New Beginnings, Light

Matthew Arnold (1994). “Dover Beach and Other Poems”, p.44, Courier Corporation

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What really dissatisfies in American civilisation is the want of the interesting, a want due chiefly to the want of those two great elements of the interesting, which are elevation and beauty.

Matthew Arnold

Two, Interesting, Elements

Matthew Arnold (2007). “Civilization in the United States”, p.190, Applewood Books

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Youth dreams a bliss on this side of death. It dreams a rest, if not more deep, More grateful than this marble sleep; It hears a voice within it tell: Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well. 'Tis all perhaps which man acquires, But 'tis not what our youth desires.

Matthew Arnold

Dream, Grateful, Sleep

Matthew Arnold (1867). “New Poems”, p.141

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Nothing could moderate, in the bosom of the great English middle class, their passionate, absorbing, almost blood-thirsty clinging to life.

Matthew Arnold

Blood, Class, Passionate

'Essays in Criticism' First Series (1865) preface

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In our English popular religion the common conception of a future state of bliss is that of ... a kind of perfected middle-class home, with labour ended, the table spread, goodness all around, the lost ones restored, hymnody incessant.

Matthew Arnold

Home, Lost Ones, Class

Matthew Arnold (1874). “Literature & Dogma: An Essay Towards a Better Apprehension of the Bible”, p.378

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Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, Light half-believers in our casual deeds . . . Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose tomorrow the ground won today- Ah, do not we, Wanderer, await it too?

Matthew Arnold

Life, Light, Heaven

1853 Poems: A New Edition,'The Scholar-Gipsy', l.171-4.

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

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