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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.

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
Men
Excitement
Add
Condition
Dignity
Recasting
Conditions
Heightening
Style
Peculiar
Spiritual
Distinction
Certain
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More quotes by Matthew Arnold

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I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.
Matthew Arnold
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There is no better motto which it [culture] can have than these words of Bishop Wilson, To make reason and the will of God prevail.
Matthew Arnold
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The best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can.
Matthew Arnold
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Thought and science follow their own law of development they are slowly elaborated in the growth and forward pressure of humanity, in what Shakespeare calls ...The prophetic soul, Of the wide world dreaming on things to come.
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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Religion--that voice of the deepest human experience.
Matthew Arnold
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Come, dear children, let us away Down and away below!
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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The brave, impetuous heart yields everywhere to the subtle, contriving head.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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We do not what we ought What we ought not, we do And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through But our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier powers.
Matthew Arnold
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Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling
Matthew Arnold
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But thou, my son, study to make prevail One colour in thy life, the hue of truth.
Matthew Arnold
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For poetry the idea is everything the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry.
Matthew Arnold
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The hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and, pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits, this good fellow carried hidden in his nature, apparently, something destined to develop into a necessity for humane letters.
Matthew Arnold
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Life is not having and getting, but being and becoming
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold