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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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Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, Light half-believers in our casual deeds . . . Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose tomorrow the ground won today- Ah, do not we, Wanderer, await it too?
Matthew Arnold
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The best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can.
Matthew Arnold
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Nothing could moderate, in the bosom of the great English middle class, their passionate, absorbing, almost blood-thirsty clinging to life.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
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
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Ah, love, let us be true To one another!
Matthew Arnold
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Come, dear children, let us away Down and away below!
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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Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, A foiled circuitous wanderertill at last The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, And in that more lie all his hopes of good.
Matthew Arnold
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How many minds--almost all the great ones--were formed in secrecy and solitude!
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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We must hold fast to the austere but true doctrine as to what really governs politics and saves or destroys states. Having in mind things true, things elevated, things just, things pure, things amiable, things of good report having these in mind, studying and loving these, is what saves states.
Matthew Arnold
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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
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They... who await. No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.
Matthew Arnold
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To thee only God granted A heart ever new: To all always open To all always true.
Matthew Arnold
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The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
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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Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class.
Matthew Arnold