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Culture, then, is a study of perfection, and perfection which insists on becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of circumstances.

Matthew Arnold

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Matthew Arnold
Age: 65 †
Born: 1822
Born: December 24
Died: 1888
Died: April 15
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
School Inspector
University Teacher
Writer
Laleham
Surrey
Study
Insists
Rather
Outward
Culture
Inward
Spirit
Condition
Mind
Perfection
Something
Circumstances
Conditions
Becoming

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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.
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Poetry a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.
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Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep Where the spent lights quiver and gleam Where the salt weed sways in the stream.
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Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives it.
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The world hath failed to impart the joy our youth forebodes failed to fill up the void which in our breasts we bear.
Matthew Arnold
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We must hold fast to the austere but true doctrine as to what really governs politics and saves or destroys states. Having in mind things true, things elevated, things just, things pure, things amiable, things of good report having these in mind, studying and loving these, is what saves states.
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What really dissatisfies in American civilisation is the want of the interesting, a want due chiefly to the want of those two great elements of the interesting, which are elevation and beauty.
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For this is the true strength of guilty kings, When they corrupt the souls of those they rule.
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Waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.
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To the Bible men will return and why? Because they cannot do without it.
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Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one
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The grand stye arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.
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Force and right are the governors of this world force till right is ready.
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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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Good poetry does undoubtedly tend to form the soul and character it tends to beget a love of beauty and of truth in alliance together, it suggests, however indirectly, high and noble principles of action, and it inspires the emotion so helpful in making principles operative.
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We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides: But tasks in hours of insight will'd Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.
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Grey time-worn marbles Hold the pure Muses. In their cool gallery, By yellow Tiber, They still look fair.
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We do not what we ought What we ought not, we do And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through But our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier powers.
Matthew Arnold
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Six years-six little years-six drops of time.
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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.
Matthew Arnold