Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Light
Reason
Make
Prevail
Sweetness
Pursuit
Perfection
Works
United

More quotes by Matthew Arnold

Image
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.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Unquiet souls. In the dark fermentation of earth, in the never idle workshop of nature, in the eternal movement, yea shall find yourselves again.
Matthew Arnold
Image
The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
Matthew Arnold
Image
If an historian be an unbeliever in all heroism, if he be a man who brings every thing down to the level of a common mediocrity, depend upon it, the truth is not found in such a writer.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?
Matthew Arnold
Image
Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask. Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Inequality has the natural and necessary effect, under the present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class.
Matthew Arnold
Image
It is almost impossible to exaggerate the proneness of the human mind to take miracles as evidence, and to seek for miracles as evidence.
Matthew Arnold
Image
The power of the Latin classic is in character , that of the Greek is in beauty . Now character is capable of being taught, learnt, and assimilated: beauty hardly.
Matthew Arnold
Image
For science, God is simply the stream of tendency by which all things seek to fulfill the law of their being.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Force and right are the governors of this world force till right is ready.
Matthew Arnold
Image
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
Image
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man.
Matthew Arnold
Image
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.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Religion--that voice of the deepest human experience.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.
Matthew Arnold
Image
To the Bible men will return and why? Because they cannot do without it.
Matthew Arnold
Image
Nothing could moderate, in the bosom of the great English middle class, their passionate, absorbing, almost blood-thirsty clinging to life.
Matthew Arnold
Image
France, famed in all great arts, in none supreme.
Matthew Arnold