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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.

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
Becoming
Growing
Culture
Character
Conceives
Resting
Perfection
Personality

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Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask. Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge.
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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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For this is the true strength of guilty kings, When they corrupt the souls of those they rule.
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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.
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Weep bitterly over the dead, for he is worthy, and then comfort thyself drive heaviness away: thou shall not do him good, but hurt thyself.
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The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay ... More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us.
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And see all sights from pole to pole, And glance, and nod, and hustle by And never once possess our soul Before we die.
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It is not in the outward and visible world of material life that the Celtic genius of Wales or Ireland can at this day hope to count for much it is in the inward world of thought and science.What it has been, what is has done, what it will be or will do, as a matter of modern politics.
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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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But there remains the question: what righteousness really is. The method and secret and sweet reasonableness of Jesus.
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Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.
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O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain!
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Nature'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 Arnold
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The eternal not ourselves that makes for righteousness.
Matthew Arnold
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Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling
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Come, dear children, let us away Down and away below!
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It is almost impossible to exaggerate the proneness of the human mind to take miracles as evidence, and to seek for miracles as evidence.
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The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
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Protestantism has the method of Jesus with His secret too much left out of mind Catholicism has His secret with His method too much left out of mind neither has His unerring balance, His intuition, His sweet reasonableness. But both have hold of a great truth, and get from it a great power.
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Who hesitate and falter life away, and lose tomorrow the ground won today.
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