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
ideas consciousness spontaneity
The governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness ; that of Hebraism, strictness of conscience .
ideas morality certain
Morality represents for everybody a thoroughly definite and ascertained idea: the idea of human conduct regulated in a certain manner.
thinking ideas differences
The uppermost idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really are; the uppermost ideas with Hebraism is conduct and obedience.Nothing can do away with this ineffaceable difference. The Greek quarrel with the body and its desires is, that they hinder right thinking; the Hebrew quarrel with them is, that they hinder right acting.
circles ideas adequate
Whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find himself one of a very small circle but it is only by this small circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get current at all.
ideas world today
For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry.
ideas world illusion
For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion.
ideas profound noble
Life is the application of noble and profound ideas to life.
enjoyed light lived small
Is it so small a thing / To have enjoyed the sun, / To have lived light in the spring, / To have loved, to have thought, to have done?
cool crossing fingers slow stream swings thames thy trailing
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bablock-hithe, / Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, / As the slow punt swings round.
armies clash confused ignorant night plain struggle swept
And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night
itself society
Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace.
culture love origin properly study
Culture is. . . properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.
attic glory life mellow saw
Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole: / The mellow glory of the Attic stage.
forth lost
Friends who set forth at our side, / Falter, are lost in the storm. / We, we only, are left!