Matthew Arnold Quotes

Ah! two desires toss about The poet's feverish blood; One drives him to the world without, And one to solitude.

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!

Had Shakespeare and Milton lived in the atmosphere of modern feeling, had they had the multitude of new thoughts and feelings to deal with a modern has, I think it likely the style of each would have been far less curious and exquisite. For in a man style is the saying in the best way what you have to say. The what you have to say depends on your age. In the 17th century it was a smaller harvest than now, and sooner to be reaped; and therefore to its reaper was left time to stow it more finely and curiously. Still more was this the case in the ancient world. The poet's matter being the hitherto experience of the world, and his own, increases with every century.

And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well — but ’tis not true!

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.

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.

A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.

Peace, peace is what I seek and public calm, Endless extinction of unhappy hates.

It is not in my nature, some of my critics would rather say, not in my power, to dispute on behalf of any opinion, even my own, very obstinately. To try and approach truth on one side after another, not to strive or cry, nor to persist in pressing forward, on any one side, with violence and self-will, — it is only thus, it seems to me, that mortals may hope to gain any vision of the mysterious Goddess, whom we shall never see except in outline, but only thus even in outline. He who will do nothing but fight impetuously towards her on his own, one, favourite, particular line, is inevitably destined to run his head into the folds of the black robe in which she is wrapped.

Therefore, when we speak of ourselves as divided into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace, we must be understood always to imply that within each of these classes there are a certain number of aliens, if we may so call them,−−persons who are mainly led, not by their class spirit, but by a general humane spirit, by the love of
human perfection

The sterner self of the Populace likes bawling, hustling, and smashing; the lighter self, beer.

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!

They... who await
No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.

The crown of literature is poetry.

Everything in our political life tends to hide from us that there is anything wiser than our ordinary selves, and to prevent our getting the notion of a paramount right reason.