Quote

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.

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
Still
Insight
Soul
Tasks
Heart
Mystery
Abides
Fire
Kindle
Hours
Resides
Spirit
Kindles
Cannot
Gloom
Stills
Fulfill

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I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.
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Come, dear children, let us away Down and away below!
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God's Wisdom and God's Goodness!--Ah, but fools Mis-define thee, till God knows them no more. Wisdom and goodness they are God!--what schools Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore. This no Saint preaches, and this no Church rules: 'Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.
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Let the long contention cease! / Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
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Culture is properly described as the love of perfection it is a study of perfection.
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No, no! The energy of life may be Kept on after the grave, but not begun And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife, From strength to strength advancing--only he His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.
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If Paris that brief flight allow, My humble tomb explore! It bears: Eternity, be thou My refuge! and no more.
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Mind is a light which the Gods mock us with, To lead those false who trust it.
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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.
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The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
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To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive.
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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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Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?
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The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
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The governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness that of Hebraism, strictness of conscience .
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Ah! two desires toss about The poet's feverish blood One drives him to the world without, And one to solitude.
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