Quote

I am bound by my own definition of criticism : a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.

Matthew Arnold

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Criticism
Known
Propagate
Learn
Disinterested
Thought
Endeavour
Best
Definition
World
Bound
Definitions
Bounds

More quotes by Matthew Arnold

Image
How many minds--almost all the great ones--were formed in secrecy and solitude!
Matthew Arnold
Image
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.
Matthew Arnold
Image
The brave, impetuous heart yields everywhere to the subtle, contriving head.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives it.
Matthew Arnold
Image
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.
Matthew Arnold
Image
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
Image
And see all sights from pole to pole, And glance, and nod, and hustle by And never once possess our soul Before we die.
Matthew Arnold
Image
To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive.
Matthew Arnold
Image
The heart less bounding at emotion new, The hope, once crushed, less quick to spring again.
Matthew Arnold
Image
A wanderer is man from his birth. He was born in a ship On the breast of the river of Time.
Matthew Arnold
Image
All the live murmur of a summer's day.
Matthew Arnold
Image
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
Image
Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals composing them are numerous, free, and active but they are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity are employed in the service of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary man taken by himself.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye.
Matthew Arnold
Image
However, if I shall live to be eighty I shall probably be the only person left in England who reads anything but newspapers and scientific publications.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Hither and thither spins The wind-borne mirroring soul, A thousand glimpses wins, And never sees a whole.
Matthew Arnold
Image
The grand stye arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.
Matthew Arnold
Image
The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Force and right are the governors of this world force till right is ready.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Ah! two desires toss about The poet's feverish blood One drives him to the world without, And one to solitude.
Matthew Arnold