Sign in with your pod

Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina

Matthew Arnold

213 quotes

• “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.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1868 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Schools and Universities on the Continent (1868)

• “Below the surface stream, shallow and light, Of what we say and feel — below the stream, As light, of what we think we feel, there flows With noiseless current, strong, obscure and deep, The central stream of what we feel indeed.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1870 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Lines in St. Paul and Protestantism, 2nd ed. (1870) p. 83

• “At the present moment two things about the Christian religion must surely be clear to anybody with eyes in his head. One is, that men cannot do without it; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Preface to God and the Bible (1875)

• “The free-thinking of one age is the common sense of the next.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: God and the Bible (1875)

• “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 (1822–1888) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Mixed Essays (1879) "Equality

• “For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Introduction to Ward's English Poets (1880)

• “Eutrapelia. "A happy and gracious flexibility," Pericles calls this quality of the Athenians...lucidity of thought, clearness and propriety of language, freedom from prejudice and freedom from stiffness, openness of mind, amiability of manners.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Irish Essays (1882) "A Speech at Eton

• “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.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Irish Essays (1882) "Ecce, Convertimur ad Gentes

• “That which in England we call the middle class is in America virtually the nation.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A Word More About America (1885)

• “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 (1822–1888) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Civilization in the United States (1888)

• “If one were searching for the best means to efface and kill in a whole nation the discipline of self-respect, the feeling for what is elevated, he could do no better than take the American newspapers.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Civilization in the United States (1888), p. 177

• “Such a price The Gods exact for song; To become what we sing.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Who prop, thou ask'st in these bad days, my mind? He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men, Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen, And Tmolus hill, and Smyrna bay, though blind.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “But be his My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul, From first youth tested up to extreme old age, Business could not make dull, nor passion wild; Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole: The mellow glory of the Attic stage.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, And in that more lie all his hopes of good.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, Didst tread on earth unguess'd at. — Better so! All pains the immortal spirit must endure, All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The will is free; Strong is the soul, and wise, and beautiful; The seeds of god-like power are in us still; Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will!”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Ennobling this dull pomp, the life of kings, By contemplation of diviner things.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Ere the parting kiss be dry, Quick, thy tablets, Memory!”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “France, fam'd in all great arts, in none supreme.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below. Now my brothers call from the bay; Now the great winds shoreward blow; Now the salt tides seaward flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. Children dear, let us away. This way, this way!”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Where the spent lights quiver and gleam; Where the salt weed sways in the stream; Where the sea-beasts rang’d all round Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye. When did music come this way? Children dear, was it yesterday?”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away?”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Children dear, was it yesterday? Children dear, were we long alone? "The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “But, ah! she gave me never a look, For her eyes were sealed to the holy book. Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. Come away, children, call no more! Come away, come down, call no more!”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “She will start from her slumber When gusts shake the door: She will hear the winds howling, Will hear the waves roar. We shall see, while above us The waves roar and whirl, A ceiling of amber, A pavement of pearl. Singing, "Here came a mortal, But faithless was she: And alone dwell for ever The kings of the sea.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “No deep the Poet sees, but wide.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The World in which we live and move Outlasts aversion, outlasts love: Outlasts each effort, interest, hope, Remorse, grief, joy.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Yet they, believe me, who await No gifts from Chance, have conquer’d Fate.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Not milder is the general lot Because our spirits have forgot, In action’s dizzying eddy whirl’d, The something that infects the world.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron’s struggle cease.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Physician of the Iron Age, Goethe has done his pilgrimage. He took the suffering human race, He read each wound, each weakness clear — And struck his finger on the place, And said — Thou ailest here, and here.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Wordsworth has gone from us — and ye, Ah, may ye feel his voice as we! He too upon a wintry clime Had fallen — on this iron time Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. He laid us as we lay at birth On the cool flowery lap of earth.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Time may restore us in his course Goethe’s sage mind and Byron’s force; But where will Europe’s latter hour Again find Wordsworth’s healing power?”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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 (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Thou hast no right to bliss.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We do not what we ought, What we ought not, we do, And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through; But our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier powers.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “So, loath to suffer mute. We, peopling the void air, Make Gods to whom to impute The ills we ought to bear.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Is it so small a thing To have enjoy’d the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanc’d true friends, and beat down baffling foes?”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Far, far from here, The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay Among the green Illyrian hills; ... And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes, Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia, Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-shore, In breathless quiet, after all their ills.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Because thou must not dream, thou needst not then despair!”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Not here, O Apollo Are haunts meet for thee. But, where Helicon breaks down In cliff to the sea.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “’Tis Apollo comes leading His choir, the Nine. —The leader is fairest, But all are divine.”

  Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

More