Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnoldwas an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth24 December 1822
men indifference mass
I knew the mass of men conceal'd Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd They would by other men be met With blank indifference.
independent race feelings
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.
ideas world illusion
For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion.
spiritual men style
Style ... is a peculiar recasting and heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to it.
class america england
That which in England we call the middle class is in America virtually the nation.
lying men good-man
Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, And in that more lie all his hopes of good.
mean perfection culture
Culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world.
light perfection pursuit
The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
art refuge stills
Art still has truth. Take refuge there.
death truth men
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.
world culture said
Culture is to know the best that has been said and thought in the world
sea sick bears
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.
dust soul each-day
And each day brings it's pretty dust, Our soon-choked souls to fll And we forget because we must, And not because we will.
hiking mountain baldness
Bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur.