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Whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find himself one of a very small circle but it is only by this small circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get current at all.

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
Ideas
Adequate
Find
Circle
Ever
Sets
Work
Whoever
Things
Current
Currents
Circles
Small
Resolutely

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The heart less bounding at emotion new, The hope, once crushed, less quick to spring again.
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I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.
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The brave, impetuous heart yields everywhere to the subtle, contriving head.
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Religion--that voice of the deepest human experience.
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Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, Light half-believers in our casual deeds . . . Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose tomorrow the ground won today- Ah, do not we, Wanderer, await it too?
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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.
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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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Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well.
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Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye.
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The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
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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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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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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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Sanity -- that is the great virtue of the ancient literature the want of that is the great defect of the modern, in spite of its variety and power.
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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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For eager teachers seized my youth, pruned my faith and trimmed my fire. Showed me the high, white star of truth, there bade me gaze and there aspire.
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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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Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age, More fortunate, alas! than we, Which without hardness will be sage, And gay without frivolity.
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Alas! is even love too weak To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
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Greatness is a spiritual condition.
Matthew Arnold