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One has often wondered whether upon the whole earth there is anything so unintelligent, so unapt to perceive how the world is really going, as an ordinary young Englishman of our upper class.

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
Earth
Upper
Young
Wondered
Anything
Perceive
Whole
Ordinary
Going
Class
Really
Whether
Unintelligent
World
Upon
Englishman
Often
Englishmen

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Physician of the Iron Age, Goethe has done his pilgrimage. He took the suffering human race, He read each wound, each weakness clear -- And struck his finger on the place, And said -- Thou ailest here, and here.
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Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.
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We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides: But tasks in hours of insight will'd Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.
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The difference between genuine poetry and the poetry of Dryden, Pope, and all their school, is briefly this: their poetry is conceived and composed in their wits, genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul.
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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.
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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.
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The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.
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Bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur.
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Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said!
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Whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find himself one of a very small circle but it is only by this small circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get current at all.
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The grand stye arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.
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What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for Beauty to forego her wreath? Yes but not this alone.
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Children of men! the unseen Power, whose eye Forever doth accompany mankind, Hath look'd on no religion scornfully That men did ever find.
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The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
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But thou, my son, study to make prevail One colour in thy life, the hue of truth.
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Mind is a light which the Gods mock us with, To lead those false who trust it.
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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?
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It is not in the outward and visible world of material life that the Celtic genius of Wales or Ireland can at this day hope to count for much it is in the inward world of thought and science.What it has been, what is has done, what it will be or will do, as a matter of modern politics.
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But there remains the question: what righteousness really is. The method and secret and sweet reasonableness of Jesus.
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Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling
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