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Poetry a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.

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
Poetry
Conditions
Beauty
Law
Truth
Poetic
Life
Fixed
Criticism
Laws

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Culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world.
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France, famed in all great arts, in none supreme.
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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.
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A wanderer is man from his birth. He was born in a ship On the breast of the river of Time.
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Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said!
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Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well.
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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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For science, God is simply the stream of tendency by which all things seek to fulfill the law of their being.
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Now the great winds shoreward blow Now the salt tides seaward flow Now the wild white horses play Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
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We, peopling the void air, Make Gods to whom to impute The ills we ought to bear With God and Fate to rail at, suffering easily.
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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.
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Come, dear children, let us away Down and away below!
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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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Not deep the poet sees, but wide.
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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.
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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.
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Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one
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All the live murmur of a summer's day.
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The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
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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