Matthew Arnold ✓

(1822–1888) critic United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

151 quotes in 1658 categories

[Wikidata] British poet and cultural critic (1822–1888)... | [Wikipedia] Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School, and brother of both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. He has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer

All Matthew Arnold Quotes

• The need of expansion is as genuine an instinct in man as the need in a plant for the light, or the need in man… Expansion
• The bent of our time is towards science, towards knowing things as they are ... Bent
• Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged; practice what you know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge. Attain
• I am bound by my own definition of criticism : a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in… Best
• Unquiet souls. In the dark fermentation of earth, in the never idle workshop of nature, in the eternal movement, yea shall find yourselves again. Dark
• Culture is the passion for sweetness and light, and (what is more) the passion for making them prevail. Culture
• The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. Light
• Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret. Clearly
• For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the… Concur
• Miracles do not happen. Funny
• Miracles are doomed; they will drop out like fairies and witchcraft, from... Doomed
• 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… Amount
• To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive. Activity
• Culture is properly described as the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection. Culture
• Because thou must not dream, thou need not despair. Despair
• Conduct is three-fourths of our life and its largest concern. Concern
• I do not believe today everything I believed yesterday I wonder will I believe tomorrow everything I believe today. Believe
• Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly. America
• 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… Anybody
• Life is the application of noble and profound ideas to life. Application
• Not deep the poet sees, but wide. Deep
• Philistine must have originally meant, in the mind of those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the chosen people, of the… Children
• Without poetry our science will appear incomplete, and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry. Appear
• Genius is mainly an affair of energy. Affair
• We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides: But… Abides

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