Quote

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

More quotes by Matthew Arnold

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Who hesitate and falter life away, and lose tomorrow the ground won today.
Matthew Arnold
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On Sundays, at the matin-chime, The Alpine peasants, two and three, Climb up here to pray Burghers and dames, at summer's prime, Ride out to church from Chamberry, Dight with mantles gay, But else it is a lonely time Round the Church of Brou.
Matthew Arnold
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Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?
Matthew Arnold
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No, no! The energy of life may be Kept on after the grave, but not begun And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife, From strength to strength advancing--only he His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.
Matthew Arnold
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Force and right are the governors of this world force till right is ready.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold
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Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.
Matthew Arnold
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To the Bible men will return and why? Because they cannot do without it.
Matthew Arnold
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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.
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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Alas! is even love too weak To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Matthew Arnold
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Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask. Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge.
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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God's Wisdom and God's Goodness!--Ah, but fools Mis-define thee, till God knows them no more. Wisdom and goodness they are God!--what schools Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore. This no Saint preaches, and this no Church rules: 'Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.
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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Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class.
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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However, if I shall live to be eighty I shall probably be the only person left in England who reads anything but newspapers and scientific publications.
Matthew Arnold
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To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man.
Matthew Arnold