Quote

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.

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
Souls
Numb
Energy
Wears
Change
Repeated
Soul
Mortal
Men
Mortals
Elastic
Life
Strongest
Shocks
Shock
Exhaust
Powers
Rolls

More quotes by Matthew Arnold

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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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All the live murmur of a summer's day.
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Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.
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Because thou must not dream, thou need not despair.
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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.
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However, if I shall live to be eighty I shall probably be the only person left in England who reads anything but newspapers and scientific publications.
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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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And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, / Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honoured, self-secure / Didst tread on earth unguessed at. Better so!.
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France, famed in all great arts, in none supreme.
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Ah, love, let us be true To one another!
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O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain!
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God's Wisdom and God's Goodness!--Ah, but fools Mis-define thee, till God knows them no more. Wisdom and goodness they are God!--what schools Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore. This no Saint preaches, and this no Church rules: 'Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.
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Not deep the poet sees, but wide.
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Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?
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Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play, Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away.
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Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals composing them are numerous, free, and active but they are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity are employed in the service of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary man taken by himself.
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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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Life is not having and getting, but being and becoming
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I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.
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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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