Matthew Arnold Quotes

It is a very great thing to be able to think as you like; but, after all, an important question remains: what you think.

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.

With women the heart argues, not the mind.

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

This truth—to prove, and make thine own: ‘Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone.’

But each day brings its petty dust Our soon-chok’d souls to fill, And we forget because we must, And not because we will.

How fair a lot to fill
Is left to each man still.

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.

I am past thirty, and three parts iced over.

Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.

How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! Again — thou hearest? Eternal passion! Eternal pain!

Her cabin’d, ample Spirit, It flutter’d and fail’d for breath. To-night it doth inherit The vasty Hall of Death.

Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew. In quiet she reposes: Ah! would that I did too.

To thee only God granted A heart ever new: To all always open; To all always true.

What actions are the most excellent? Those, certainly, which most powerfully appeal to the great primary human affections: to those elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are independent of time. These feelings are permanent and the same; that which interests them is permanent and the same also.