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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

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

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Hither and thither spins The wind-borne mirroring soul, A thousand glimpses wins, And never sees a whole.
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They... who await. No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.
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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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English civilization the humanizing, the bringing into one harmonious and truly humane life, of the whole body of English society that is what interests me.
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Waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.
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But thou, my son, study to make prevail One colour in thy life, the hue of truth.
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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.
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ForTime, not Corydon, hath conquered thee.
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For science, God is simply the stream of tendency by which all things seek to fulfill the law of their being.
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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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Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, And in that more lie all his hopes of good.
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The best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can.
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Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class.
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Thought and science follow their own law of development they are slowly elaborated in the growth and forward pressure of humanity, in what Shakespeare calls ...The prophetic soul, Of the wide world dreaming on things to come.
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For 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.
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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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Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye.
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The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.
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Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said!
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To thee only God granted A heart ever new: To all always open To all always true.
Matthew Arnold