Matthew Arnold Quotes

Yes: in the sea of life enisl'd,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.

On the mind of an adversary one never makes the faintest impression.

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

To see the object as in itself it really is

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!

We do not what we ought, What we ought not, we do, And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through.

Now, the use of culture is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, and not only to say as a matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive and feel that it is so.

If it were not for this purging effect wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as well as the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call Philistines.

Culture says: 'Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just like these people by having it?

Sanity — that is the great virtue of the ancient literature; the want of that is the great defect of the modern, in spite of its variety and power.

Of these two literatures, as of the intellect of Europe in general, the main effort, for now many years, has been a critical effort; the endeavour, in all branches of knowledge — theology, philosophy, history, art, science — to see the object as in itself it really is.

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.

Vain is the effort to forget.
Some day I shall be cold, I know,
As is the eternal moonlit snow
Of the high Alps, to which I go — But ah, not yet, not yet!

Vain is the agony of grief.
'Tis true, indeed, an iron knot
Ties straitly up from mine thy lot,
And were it snapt — thou lov'st me not!
But is despair relief?

O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; Before this strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims, Its heads o’ertax’d, its palsied hearts, was rife.

All are before me! I behold The House, the Brotherhood austere! — And what am I, that I am here? For rigorous teachers seized my youth, And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire, Show'd me the high, white star of Truth, There bade me gaze, and there aspire. Even now their whispers pierce the gloom: What dost thou in this living tomb?

I am past thirty, and three parts iced over.

Waiting from heaven for the spark to fall.