Matthew Arnold quotes - page 2

Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic, renowned for his lyrical poetry and essays on social issues. His works reflect concerns about the spiritual and social changes of Victorian society. He influenced modern criticism and continues to be studied for his insights into literature and culture. Here are 235 of his quotes:

The sophist sneers: Fool, take Thy pleasure, right or wrong! The pious wail: Forsake A world these sophists throng! Be neither saint nor sophist-led, but be a man. (Matthew Arnold)
It is - last stage of all - When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man. View quote
Matthew Arnold
What shelter to grow ripe is ours? What leisure to grow wise? View quote
Matthew Arnold
Style...is a peculiar recasting and heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to it. View quote
Matthew Arnold
One must, I think, be struck more and more the longer one lives, to find how much in our present society a man's life of each day depends for its solidity and value upon whether he reads during that day, and far more still on what he reads during it. View quote
Matthew Arnold
Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall. View quote
Matthew Arnold
The power of the Latin classic is in character, that of the Greek is in beauty. Now character is capable of being taught, learnt, and assimilated: beauty hardly. View quote
Matthew Arnold
The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. View quote
Matthew Arnold
O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain! View quote
Matthew Arnold
And amongst us one, Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne. View quote
Matthew Arnold
To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive. (Matthew Arnold)
Bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur. View quote
Matthew Arnold
Still bent to make some port he knows not where, still standing for some false impossible shore. View quote
Matthew Arnold
Waiting for the spark from heaven to fall. View quote
Matthew Arnold
The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion. View quote
Matthew Arnold
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. View quote
Matthew Arnold
Come, dear children, let us away Down and away below. View quote
Matthew Arnold
English civilization - the humanizing, the bringing into one harmonious and truly humane life, of the whole body of English society - that is what interests me. View quote
Matthew Arnold
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. View quote
Matthew Arnold
Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease. View quote
Matthew Arnold
However, if I shall live to be eighty I shall probably be the only person left in England who reads anything but newspapers and scientific publications. (Matthew Arnold)
Fate gave, what Chance shall not control, His sad lucidity of soul. View quote
Matthew Arnold
Yet they, believe me, who await No gifts from Chance, have conquer'd Fate. View quote
Matthew Arnold
The best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. View quote
Matthew Arnold
It is a very great thing to be able to think as you like; but, after all, an important question remains: what you think. View quote
Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold - Image
Occupation: British Poet
Born: December 24, 1822
Died: April 15, 1888
Quotes count: 235
Wikipedia: Matthew Arnold

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