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Mind is a light which the Gods mock us with, To lead those false who trust it.

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
Trust
Light
Mind
Mock
Gods
False
Lead

More quotes by Matthew Arnold

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The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
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Let the long contention cease! / Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
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I knew the mass of men conceal'd Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd They would by other men be met With blank indifference.
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The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.... He who works for sweetness and light united, works to make reason and the will of God prevail.
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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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No, no! The energy of life may be Kept on after the grave, but not begun And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife, From strength to strength advancing--only he His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.
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English civilization the humanizing, the bringing into one harmonious and truly humane life, of the whole body of English society that is what interests me.
Matthew Arnold
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Style ... is a peculiar recasting and heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to it.
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The need of expansion is as genuine an instinct in man as the need in a plant for the light, or the need in man himself for going upright. The love of liberty is simply the instinct in man for expansion.
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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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Because thou must not dream, thou need not despair.
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Ah, love, let us be true To one another!
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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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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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Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play, Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away.
Matthew Arnold
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Force and right are the governors of this world force till right is ready.
Matthew Arnold
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The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
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.
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To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man.
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.
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