Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian
Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Introduction, p.xv
“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.”
"The Buried Life" (1852), st. 6
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
A…" by Matthew Arnold?
Matthew Arnold166
English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector… 1822–1888Related quotes
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (1808–1877) English feminist, social reformer, and author
Not lost but gone before (c. 1863).
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, Keep Moving From This Mountain (1965)
Context: Each of us lives in two realms, the "within" and the "without." The within of our lives is somehow found in the realm of ends, the without in the realm of means. The within of our [lives], the bottom — that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion for which at best we live. The without of our lives is that realm of instrumentalities, techniques, mechanisms by which we live. Now the great temptation of life and the great tragedy of life is that so often we allow the without of our lives to absorb the within of our lives. The great tragedy of life is that too often we allow the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live.
Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War
Letter to Lieutenant Colonel Charles Marshall (September 1870)
1870s
Context: My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them or indisposed me to serve them; nor in spite of failures, which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge; or of the present aspect of affairs; do I despair of the future.
The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow, and our desires so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.
Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist
The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVII
Context: Who shall compose the Bible of human desire, the terrible and simple Bible of that which drives us from life to life, the Bible of our doings, our goings, our original fall? Who will dare to tell everything, who will have the genius to see everything?
I believe in a lofty form of poetry, in the work in which beauty will be mingled with beliefs. The more incapable of it I feel myself, the more I believe it to be possible. The sad splendour with which certain memories of mine overwhelm me, shows me that it is possible. Sometimes I myself have been sublime, I myself have been a masterpiece. Sometimes my visions have been mingled with a thrill of evidence so strong and so creative that the whole room has quivered with it like a forest, and there have been moments, in truth, when the silence cried out.
But I have stolen all this, and I have profited by it, thanks to the shamelessness of the truth revealed. At the point in space in which, by accident, I found myself, I had only to open my eyes and to stretch out my mendicant hands to accomplish more than a dream, to accomplish almost a work.
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist
Source: The Life of Pasteur (1902), p. 114
Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)
2021, February 2021, Remarks by President Biden to Department of Defense Personnel, February 10, 2021
