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What really dissatisfies in American civilisation is the want of the interesting, a want due chiefly to the want of those two great elements of the interesting, which are elevation and beauty.

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
Beauty
Interesting
American
Two
Elevation
Great
Chiefly
Really
Civilisation
Dues
Elements

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Nature's great law, and the law of all men's minds? To its own impulse every creature stirs: Live by thy light, and Earth will live by hers.
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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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Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged practice what you know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge.
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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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To the Bible men will return and why? Because they cannot do without it.
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Youth dreams a bliss on this side of death. It dreams a rest, if not more deep, More grateful than this marble sleep It hears a voice within it tell: Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well. 'Tis all perhaps which man acquires, But 'tis not what our youth desires.
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Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, And in that more lie all his hopes of good.
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The brave, impetuous heart yields everywhere to the subtle, contriving head.
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Once read thy own breast right, And thou hast done with fears.
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All the live murmur of a summer's day.
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Hither and thither spins The wind-borne mirroring soul, A thousand glimpses wins, And never sees a whole.
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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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Who hesitate and falter life away, and lose tomorrow the ground won today.
Matthew Arnold
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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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I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.
Matthew Arnold
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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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Culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world.
Matthew Arnold
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Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said!
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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And see all sights from pole to pole, And glance, and nod, and hustle by And never once possess our soul Before we die.
Matthew Arnold