Quote

Culture is properly described as the love of perfection it is a study of perfection.

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
Love
Swag
Swagger
Described
Properly
Perfection
Study
Culture

More quotes by Matthew Arnold

Image
But thou, my son, study to make prevail One colour in thy life, the hue of truth.
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
And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, / Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honoured, self-secure / Didst tread on earth unguessed at. Better so!.
Matthew Arnold
Image
We, peopling the void air, Make Gods to whom to impute The ills we ought to bear With God and Fate to rail at, suffering easily.
Matthew Arnold
Image
The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
Matthew Arnold
Image
For eager teachers seized my youth, pruned my faith and trimmed my fire. Showed me the high, white star of truth, there bade me gaze and there aspire.
Matthew Arnold
Image
On Sundays, at the matin-chime, The Alpine peasants, two and three, Climb up here to pray Burghers and dames, at summer's prime, Ride out to church from Chamberry, Dight with mantles gay, But else it is a lonely time Round the Church of Brou.
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
Ah, love, let us be true To one another!
Matthew Arnold
Image
In our English popular religion the common conception of a future state of bliss is that of ... a kind of perfected middle-class home, with labour ended, the table spread, goodness all around, the lost ones restored, hymnody incessant.
Matthew Arnold
Image
It is almost impossible to exaggerate the proneness of the human mind to take miracles as evidence, and to seek for miracles as evidence.
Matthew Arnold
Image
They... who await. No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Once read thy own breast right, And thou hast done with fears.
Matthew Arnold
Image
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.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Eutrapelia . A happy and gracious flexibility, Pericles calls this quality of the Athenians...lucidity of thought, clearness and propriety of language, freedom from prejudice and freedom from stiffness, openness of mind, amiability of manners.
Matthew Arnold
Image
All the live murmur of a summer's day.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Sanity -- that is the great virtue of the ancient literature the want of that is the great defect of the modern, in spite of its variety and power.
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
Come, dear children, let us away Down and away below!
Matthew Arnold
Image
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