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
change men tranquil
Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.
swans long geese
Let the long contention cease! / Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
god school church
God's Wisdom and God's Goodness!--Ah, but fools Mis-define thee, till God knows them no more. Wisdom and goodness they are God!--what schools Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore. This no Saint preaches, and this no Church rules: 'Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.
ocean men sea
Like driftwood spares which meet and pass Upon the boundless ocean-plain, So on the sea of life, alas! Man nears man, meets, and leaves again.
men frozen world
It is - last stage of all When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man
children eye men
Children of men! the unseen Power, whose eye Forever doth accompany mankind, Hath look'd on no religion scornfully That men did ever find.
book character two
The Greek word euphuia, a finely tempered nature, gives exactly the notion of perfection as culture brings us to perceive it; a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of things"--as Swift . . . most happily calls them in his Battle of the Books, "the two noblest of things, sweetness and light.
dream grateful sleep
Youth dreams a bliss on this side of death. It dreams a rest, if not more deep, More grateful than this marble sleep; It hears a voice within it tell: Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well. 'Tis all perhaps which man acquires, But 'tis not what our youth desires.
summer
All the live murmur of a summer's day.
poetry simplicity noble
The grand stye arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.
thinking important able
It is a very great thing to be able to think as you like; but, after all, an important question remains: what you think.
expression
Philistinism! - We have not the expression in English. Perhaps we have not the word because we have so much of the thing.
fate soul chance
Fate gave, what Chance shall not control, His sad lucidity of soul.
philosopher poet mist
Coleridge: poet and philosopher wrecked in a mist of opium.