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
passion light culture
Culture is the passion for sweetness and light, and (what is more) the passion for making them prevail.
writing men two
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 man is not enough without the moment.
miracle happens
Miracles do not happen.
voice giving people
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?
lying heart mean
Only--but this is rare-- When a beloved hand is laid in ours, When, jaded with the rush and glare Of the interminable hours, Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear, When our world-deafen'd ear Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd-- A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast, And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again. The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know. A man becomes aware of his life's flow, And hears its winding murmur; and he sees The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.
creative alive proof
To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive.
perfection culture study
Culture is properly described as the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.
dream despair needs
Because thou must not dream, thou need not despair.
life light heaven
Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, Light half-believers in our casual deeds . . . Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose tomorrow the ground won today- Ah, do not we, Wanderer, await it too?
children down-and dear
Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below!
suffering intellectual thrones
And amongst us one, Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne.
gone
The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I.
strong soul vain
O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain!
self political ordinary
Everything in our political life tends to hide from us that there is anything wiser than our ordinary selves.