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Let the long contention cease! / Geese are swans, and swans are geese.

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
Long
Swans
Geese
Contention
Cease

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The brave, impetuous heart yields everywhere to the subtle, contriving head.
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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.
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We must hold fast to the austere but true doctrine as to what really governs politics and saves or destroys states. Having in mind things true, things elevated, things just, things pure, things amiable, things of good report having these in mind, studying and loving these, is what saves states.
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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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ForTime, not Corydon, hath conquered thee.
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Bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur.
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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.
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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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France, famed in all great arts, in none supreme.
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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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The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
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Weep bitterly over the dead, for he is worthy, and then comfort thyself drive heaviness away: thou shall not do him good, but hurt thyself.
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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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I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.
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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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To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive.
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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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Grey time-worn marbles Hold the pure Muses. In their cool gallery, By yellow Tiber, They still look fair.
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Ah! two desires toss about The poet's feverish blood One drives him to the world without, And one to solitude.
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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.
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