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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
Elements
Beauty
Interesting
American
Two
Elevation
Chiefly
Great
Civilisation
Really
Dues

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Children of men! the unseen Power, whose eye Forever doth accompany mankind, Hath look'd on no religion scornfully That men did ever find.
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For science, God is simply the stream of tendency by which all things seek to fulfill the law of their being.
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The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay ... More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us.
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The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
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The uppermost idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really are the uppermost ideas with Hebraism is conduct and obedience.Nothing can do away with this ineffaceable difference. The Greek quarrel with the body and its desires is, that they hinder right thinking the Hebrew quarrel with them is, that they hinder right acting.
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To thee only God granted A heart ever new: To all always open To all always true.
Matthew Arnold
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Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well.
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Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one
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All the live murmur of a summer's day.
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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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Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, And in that more lie all his hopes of good.
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The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.
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They... who await. No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.
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With aching hands and bleeding feet We dig and heap, lay stone on stone We bear the burden and the heat Of the long day, and wish 'twere done. Not till the hours of light return All we have built do we discern.
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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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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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Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class.
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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Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep Where the spent lights quiver and gleam Where the salt weed sways in the stream.
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Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the sky, to have loved, to have thought, to have done?
Matthew Arnold