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.
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.
More Matthew Arnold Quotes
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On the breast of that huge Mississippi of falsehood called History, a foam-bell more or less is no consequence.
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Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.
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With aching hands and bleeding feet We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; We bear the burden and the heat Of the long day, and wish ’twere done. Not till the hours of light return All we have built do we discern.
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Fate gave, what Chance shall not control, His sad lucidity of soul.
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Business could not make dull, nor passion wild; Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole.
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Culture is properly described as the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.
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Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?
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I do not believe today everything I believed yesterday I wonder will I believe tomorrow everything I believe today.
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Once read thy own breast right, And thou hast done with fears.
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Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged; practice what you know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge.
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Greatness is a spiritual condition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration; and the outward proof of possessing greatness is that we excite love, interest, and admiration.
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And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well — but ’tis not true!
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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
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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.
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Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows Like the wave; Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men. Love tends life a little grace, A few sad smiles; and then, Both are laid in one cold place, In the grave.
MATTHEW ARNOLD






