Matthew Arnold: Trending quotes

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Matthew Arnold: 332 quotes9 likes

“And we forget because we must and not because we will.”

“Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.”

Matthew Arnold

“Art still has truth. Take refuge there.”

Matthew Arnold

“Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born,
With nowhere yet to rest my head,
Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.”

Matthew Arnold

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855)

“Resolve to be thyself; and know, that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery.”

Matthew Arnold

"Self-Dependence" (1852), lines 31-32
Source: The Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold

“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 Dover Beach

St. 1
Dover Beach (1867)
Source: Dover Beach and Other Poems

“We mortal millions live alone.”

Matthew Arnold

“Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep.”

Matthew Arnold

St. 3
The Forsaken Merman (1849)

“English civilization — the humanizing, the bringing into one harmonious and truly humane life, of the whole body of English society — that is what interests me.”

Matthew Arnold

"Irish Essays. Ecce, Convertimur ad Gentes" (1882)

“Nature, with equal mind,
Sees all her sons at play
Sees man control the wind,
The wind sweep man away.”

Matthew Arnold book Empedocles on Etna

Act I, sc. ii
Empedocles on Etna (1852)

“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.”

Matthew Arnold

"Democracy" (1861)

“But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us, to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.”

Matthew Arnold

"The Buried Life" (1852), st. 6

“The crown of literature is poetry.”

Matthew Arnold

Count Leo Tolstoi
Essays in Criticism, second series (1888)

“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

St. 1
Rugby Chapel (1867)

“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 the 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?””

Matthew Arnold book Culture and Anarchy

Source: Culture and Anarchy (1869), Ch. I, Sweetness and Light

“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

The Functions of Criticism at the Present Time (1864)

“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

St. 12
Rugby Chapel (1867)

“Eutrapelia. "A happy and gracious flexibility," Pericles calls this quality of the Athenians… lucidity of thought, clearness and propriety of language, freedom from prejudice and freedom from stiffness, openness of mind, amiability of manners.”

Matthew Arnold

"Irish Essays. A Speech at Eton" (1882)

“Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron’s struggle cease.”

Matthew Arnold

St. 1
Memorial Verses (1852)

“Thou hast no right to bliss.”

Matthew Arnold book Empedocles on Etna

Act I, sc. ii
Empedocles on Etna (1852)