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Matthew Arnold
213 quotes
“Critical power...tends to make an intellectual situation of which the creative power can profitably avail itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not absolutely true, yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; to make the best ideas prevail.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is the world of ideas and there is the world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the one and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Burke is so great because, almost alone in England, he brings thought to bear upon politics, he saturates politics with thought.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The notion of the free play of the mind upon all subjects being a pleasure in itself, being an object of desire, being an essential provider of elements without which a nation's spirit, whatever compensations it may have for them, must, in the long run, die of inanition, hardly enters into an Englishman's thoughts.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am bound by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the breast of that huge Mississippi of falsehood called History, a foam-bell more or less is no consequence.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Philistine must have originally meant, in the mind of those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the children of the light.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great apostle of the Philistines, Lord Macaulay”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Homer is rapid in his movement, Homer is plain in his words and style, Homer is simple in his ideas, Homer is noble in his manner. Cowper renders him ill because he is slow in his movement, and elaborate in his style; Pope renders him ill because he is artificial both in his style and in his words; Chapman renders him ill because he is fantastic in his ideas; Mr. Newman renders him ill because he is odd in his words and ignoble in his manner.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Are ye too changed, ye hills? See, ’tis no foot of unfamiliar men Tonight from Oxford up your pathway strays! Here came I often, often, in old days; Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs, The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And that sweet city with her dreaming spires, She needs not June for beauty’s heightening.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He went; his piping took a troubled sound Of storms that rage outside our happy ground; He could not wait their passing, he is dead!”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees, Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze: The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I!”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For Time, not Corydon, hath conquer'd thee!”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. I see her veil draw soft across the day, I feel her slowly chilling breath invade The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey; I feel her finger light Laid pausefully upon life’s headlong train; — The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, The heart less bounding at emotion new, And hope, once crush’d, less quick to spring again.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!— Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim, These brambles pale with mist engarlanded, That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him; To a boon southern country he is fled, And now in happier air, Wandering with the great Mother’s train divine (And purer or more subtle soul than thee, I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see) Within a folding of the Apennine.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why faintest thou! I wander’d till I died. Roam on! The light we sought is shining still. Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill, Our Scholar travels yet the loved hillside.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1239 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: St. 3 (cf. Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, l. 1239)
“Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said! Vain thy onset! all stands fast. Thou thyself must break at last”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired; best be still.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They out-talk’d thee, hiss’d thee, tore thee. Better men fared thus before thee; Fired their ringing shot and pass’d, Hotly charged — and broke at last.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Charge once more, then, and be dumb! Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Coldly, sadly descends The autumn evening. The Field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of wither’d leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, Silent;—hardly a shout From a few boys late at their play!”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain!”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is the course of the life Of mortal men on the earth?— Most men eddy about Here and there—eat and drink, Chatter and love and hate, Gather and squander, are raised Aloft, are hurl’d in the dust, Striving blindly, achieving Nothing; and, then they die— Perish; and no one asks Who or what they have been, More than he asks what waves In the moonlit solitudes mild Of the midmost Ocean, have swell’d, Foam’d for a moment, and gone.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Therefore to thee it was given Many to save with thyself; And, at the end of thy day, O faithful shepherd! to come, Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Radiant with ardour divine! Beacons of Hope ye appear! Languor is not in your heart, Weakness is not in your word, Weariness not on your brow.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world; and through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am a Liberal, yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience, reflexion, and renouncement, and I am, above all, a believer in culture.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Culture is then properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Greatness is a spiritual condition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration; and the outward proof of possessing greatness is that we excite love, interest, and admiration.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The men of culture are the true apostles of equality.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything in our political life tends to hide from us that there is anything wiser than our ordinary selves.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness; that of Hebraism, strictness of conscience.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[W]ithout order there can be no society, and without society there can be no human perfection.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Conduct is three-fourths of our life and its largest concern.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Coleridge, poet and philosopher wrecked in a mist of opium.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The crown of literature is poetry.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: W. Somerset Maugham (misattributed)
“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 (1822–1888) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a letter to his sister, New Year's Day, 1882. Quoted in the Preface