Matthew Arnold Quotes - Page 9

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• Like driftwood spares which meet and pass Upon the boundless ocean-plain, So on the sea of life, alas! Man nears man, meets, and leaves again.

  Matthew Arnold

  Ocean, Men, Sea

  62 Copy quote

• Let the long contention cease! / Geese are swans, and swans are geese.

  Matthew Arnold

  Swans, Long, Geese

  'The Last Word' (1867)

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• Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well.

  Matthew Arnold

  Crowns, Calm, Tranquility

  Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.945, Delphi Classics

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• If Paris that brief flight allow, My humble tomb explore! It bears: Eternity, be thou My refuge! and no more.

  Matthew Arnold

  Humble, Paris, Bears

  Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.459, Delphi Classics

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• For what wears out the life of mortal men? 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls; Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls And numb the elastic powers.

  Matthew Arnold

  Change, Men, Soul

  Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.240, Delphi Classics

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• Cruel, but composed and bland,
  Dumb, inscrutable and grand,
  So Tiberius might have sat,
  Had Tiberius been a cat.

  Matthew Arnold

  Cat, Dumb, Might

  'Poor Matthias' (1885) l. 40

  4 Copy quote

• Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling

  Matthew Arnold

  Feelings, Ethics, Lit

  Matthew Arnold (1874). “Literature & Dogma: An Essay Towards a Better Apprehension of the Bible”, p.21

  4 Copy quote

• The eloquent voice of our century uttered, shortly before leaving the world, a warning cry against the "Anglo- Saxon contagion.

  Matthew Arnold

  Voice, Leaving, Warning

  Matthew Arnold (1964). “Matthew Arnold's essays in criticism: first and second series”

  7 Copy quote

• And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, / Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honoured, self-secure / Didst tread on earth unguessed at. Better so!.

  Matthew Arnold

  Stars, Self, Earth

  'Shakespeare' (1849)

  4 Copy quote

• Children of men! the unseen Power, whose eye Forever doth accompany mankind, Hath look'd on no religion scornfully That men did ever find.

  Matthew Arnold

  Religious, Children, Eye

  Matthew Arnold (1877). “Poems by Matthew Arnold: Lyric, dramatic, and elegiac poems”

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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

  7 Copy quote

• Because thou must not dream, thou need not despair.

  Matthew Arnold

  Dream, Despair, Needs

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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

  4 Copy quote

• 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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• 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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• Most men in a brazen prison live, Where, in the sun's hot eye, With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give, Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall.

  Matthew Arnold

  Dream, Wall, Work

  Matthew Arnold (1994). “Dover Beach and Other Poems”, p.29, Courier Corporation

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• Poetry; a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.

  Matthew Arnold

  Law, Criticism, Poetic

  Matthew Arnold (1973). “English Literature and Irish Politics”, p.163, University of Michigan Press

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• And as long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness will come to Israel for inspiration, as to the people who have had the sense for righteousness most glowing and strongest; and in hearing and reading the words Israel has uttered for us, carers for conduct will find a glow and a force they could find nowhere else.

  Matthew Arnold

  Inspiration, Reading, Israel

  Matthew Arnold (1968). “Complete Prose Works: Dissent and dogma”

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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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• 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'

  4 Copy quote

• Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, A foiled circuitous wanderertill at last The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

  Matthew Arnold

  Stars, Home, Sea

  'Sohrab and Rustum' (1853) l. 886

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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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• Beautiful city! . . . spreading her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age . . . her ineffable charm. . . . Adorable dreamer, whose heart has been so romantic!

  Matthew Arnold

  Beautiful, Heart, Garden

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• One has often wondered whether upon the whole earth there is anything so unintelligent, so unapt to perceive how the world is really going, as an ordinary young Englishman of our upper class.

  Matthew Arnold

  Class, Ordinary, World

  Matthew Arnold, Stefan Collini (1993). “Arnold: 'Culture and Anarchy' and Other Writings”, p.91, Cambridge University Press

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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

  7 Copy quote

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