Quote

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

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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
Kind
State
Tables
Incessant
Common
Spread
Insulting
Future
English
Conception
Religion
Goodness
Bliss
Lost
England
Ended
Around
Ones
Labour
Home
Middle
Table
Perfected
States
Class
Popular
Restored

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There is no better motto which it [culture] can have than these words of Bishop Wilson, To make reason and the will of God prevail.
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All the live murmur of a summer's day.
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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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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.
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The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.... He who works for sweetness and light united, works to make reason and the will of God prevail.
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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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Not deep the poet sees, but wide.
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Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age, More fortunate, alas! than we, Which without hardness will be sage, And gay without frivolity.
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Culture is properly described as the love of perfection it is a study of perfection.
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To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man.
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The difference between genuine poetry and the poetry of Dryden, Pope, and all their school, is briefly this: their poetry is conceived and composed in their wits, genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul.
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Weary of myself, and sick of asking What I am, and what I ought to be, At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.
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The brave, impetuous heart yields everywhere to the subtle, contriving head.
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What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for Beauty to forego her wreath? Yes but not this alone.
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Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.
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What really dissatisfies in American civilisation is the want of the interesting, a want due chiefly to the want of those two great elements of the interesting, which are elevation and beauty.
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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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The best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can.
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Alas! is even love too weak To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
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For poetry the idea is everything the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry.
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