The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
MATTHEW ARNOLDFor 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.
More Matthew Arnold Quotes
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How many minds–almost all the great ones–were formed in secrecy and solitude!
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If 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.
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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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Culture is properly described as the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.
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Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one
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They… who await. No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.
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Style … is a peculiar recasting and heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to it.
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Yes! in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone.
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Force and right are the governors of this world; force till right is ready.
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It is a very great thing to be able to think as you like; but, after all, an important question remains: what you think.
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Resolve to be thyself: and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.
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Not deep the poet sees, but wide.
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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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Life is not having and getting, but being and becoming
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Nor bring, to see me cease to live, Some doctor full of phrase and fame, To shake his sapient head, and give The ill he cannot cure a name.
MATTHEW ARNOLD