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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.

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
Time
Turn
Immense
Life
High
Discover
Race
Worthy
Turns
Destiny
Surer
Future
Poetry
Destinies
Art
Mankind
Console
Find
Stay
Interpret
Ever
Goes
Sustain

More quotes by 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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Not deep the poet sees, but wide.
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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Because thou must not dream, thou need not despair.
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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The eternal not ourselves that makes for righteousness.
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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The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.... He who works for sweetness and light united, works to make reason and the will of God prevail.
Matthew Arnold
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Culture is properly described as the love of perfection it is a study of perfection.
Matthew Arnold
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How many minds--almost all the great ones--were formed in secrecy and solitude!
Matthew Arnold
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Weary of myself, and sick of asking What I am, and what I ought to be, At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.
Matthew Arnold
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Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye.
Matthew Arnold
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In our English popular religion the common conception of a future state of bliss is that of ... a kind of perfected middle-class home, with labour ended, the table spread, goodness all around, the lost ones restored, hymnody incessant.
Matthew Arnold
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Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.
Matthew Arnold
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Calm soul of all things! make it mine To feel, amid the city's jar, That there abides a peace of thine, Man did not make, and cannot mar! The will to neither strive nor cry, The power to feel what others give! Calm, calm me more! nor let me die Before I have begun to live.
Matthew Arnold
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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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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.
Matthew Arnold
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O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain!
Matthew Arnold
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Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one
Matthew Arnold
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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.
Matthew Arnold