Quote

We do not what we ought What we ought not, we do And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through But our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier powers.

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
Bring
Chance
Upon
Mightier
Thought
Lean
Good
Ill
Acts
Powers
Ought

More quotes by Matthew Arnold

Image
Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one
Matthew Arnold
Image
Force and right are the governors of this world force till right is ready.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Style ... is a peculiar recasting and heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to it.
Matthew Arnold
Image
The world hath failed to impart the joy our youth forebodes failed to fill up the void which in our breasts we bear.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Let the long contention cease! / Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
Matthew Arnold
Image
But thou, my son, study to make prevail One colour in thy life, the hue of truth.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask. Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge.
Matthew Arnold
Image
The power of the Latin classic is in character , that of the Greek is in beauty . Now character is capable of being taught, learnt, and assimilated: beauty hardly.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Youth dreams a bliss on this side of death. It dreams a rest, if not more deep, More grateful than this marble sleep It hears a voice within it tell: Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well. 'Tis all perhaps which man acquires, But 'tis not what our youth desires.
Matthew Arnold
Image
For what wears out the life of mortal men? 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls And numb the elastic powers.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age, More fortunate, alas! than we, Which without hardness will be sage, And gay without frivolity.
Matthew Arnold
Image
The eternal not ourselves that makes for righteousness.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Calm soul of all things! make it mine To feel, amid the city's jar, That there abides a peace of thine, Man did not make, and cannot mar! The will to neither strive nor cry, The power to feel what others give! Calm, calm me more! nor let me die Before I have begun to live.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling
Matthew Arnold
Image
To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Culture is properly described as the love of perfection it is a study of perfection.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Nothing could moderate, in the bosom of the great English middle class, their passionate, absorbing, almost blood-thirsty clinging to life.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Come, dear children, let us away Down and away below!
Matthew Arnold
Image
Not deep the poet sees, but wide.
Matthew Arnold