Below the surface stream, shallow and light, Of what we say and feel below the stream, As light, of what we think we feel, there flows With noiseless current, strong, obscure and deep, The central stream of what we feel indeed.
MATTHEW ARNOLDBelow the surface stream, shallow and light, Of what we say and feel below the stream, As light, of what we think we feel, there flows With noiseless current, strong, obscure and deep, The central stream of what we feel indeed.
MATTHEW ARNOLDIt is a very great thing to be able to think as you like; but, after all, an important question remains: what you think.
MATTHEW ARNOLDMen of culture are the true apostles of equality
MATTHEW ARNOLDIf an historian be an unbeliever in all heroism, if he be a man who brings every thing down to the level of a common mediocrity, depend upon it, the truth is not found in such a writer.
MATTHEW ARNOLDLife is not having and getting, but being and becoming
MATTHEW ARNOLDThe pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
MATTHEW ARNOLDFor poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion.
MATTHEW ARNOLDHave something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.
MATTHEW ARNOLDGreatness is a spiritual condition.
MATTHEW ARNOLDAh! two desires toss about The poet’s feverish blood; One drives him to the world without, And one to solitude.
MATTHEW ARNOLDBut there remains the question: what righteousness really is. The method and secret and sweet reasonableness of Jesus.
MATTHEW ARNOLDHow many minds–almost all the great ones–were formed in secrecy and solitude!
MATTHEW ARNOLDThe sophist sneers: Fool, take Thy pleasure, right or wrong! The pious wail: Forsake A world these sophists throng! Be neither saint nor sophist-led, but be a man.
MATTHEW ARNOLDNature’s great law, and the law of all men’s minds? To its own impulse every creature stirs: Live by thy light, and Earth will live by hers.
MATTHEW ARNOLDConduct is three-fourths of our life and its largest concern.
MATTHEW ARNOLDCulture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one
MATTHEW ARNOLD