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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
Law
Truth
Poetic
Fixed
Life
Criticism
Laws
Poetry
Conditions
Beauty

More quotes by Matthew Arnold

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Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun.
Matthew Arnold
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And we forget because we must and not because we will.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep Where the spent lights quiver and gleam Where the salt weed sways in the stream.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
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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On Sundays, at the matin-chime, The Alpine peasants, two and three, Climb up here to pray Burghers and dames, at summer's prime, Ride out to church from Chamberry, Dight with mantles gay, But else it is a lonely time Round the Church of Brou.
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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Culture, then, is a study of perfection, and perfection which insists on becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of circumstances.
Matthew Arnold
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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
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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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Life is not having and getting, but being and becoming
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment.
Matthew Arnold
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Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.
Matthew Arnold
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Waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.
Matthew Arnold
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If Paris that brief flight allow, My humble tomb explore! It bears: Eternity, be thou My refuge! and no more.
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.
Matthew Arnold
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Truth illuminates and gives joy and it is by the bond of joy, not of pleasure, that men's spirits are indissolubly held.
Matthew Arnold
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I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.
Matthew Arnold