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Life is not having and getting, but being and becoming

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
Becoming
Getting
Life

More quotes by Matthew Arnold

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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
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Let the long contention cease! / Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
Matthew Arnold
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To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man.
Matthew Arnold
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Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives it.
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Unquiet souls. In the dark fermentation of earth, in the never idle workshop of nature, in the eternal movement, yea shall find yourselves again.
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They... who await. No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
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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
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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
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Nature's great law, and the law of all men's minds? To its own impulse every creature stirs: Live by thy light, and Earth will live by hers.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
Matthew Arnold
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Six years-six little years-six drops of time.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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Grey time-worn marbles Hold the pure Muses. In their cool gallery, By yellow Tiber, They still look fair.
Matthew Arnold
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Waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.
Matthew Arnold
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The hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and, pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits, this good fellow carried hidden in his nature, apparently, something destined to develop into a necessity for humane letters.
Matthew Arnold
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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
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O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain!
Matthew Arnold