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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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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
Make
Prevail
Sweetness
Pursuit
Perfection
Works
United
Light
Reason

More quotes by Matthew Arnold

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Greatness is a spiritual condition.
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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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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.
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Nor bring, to see me cease to live, Some doctor full of phrase and fame, To shake his sapient head, and give The ill he cannot cure a name.
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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.
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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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Force and right are the governors of this world force till right is ready.
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For what wears out the life of mortal men? 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls And numb the elastic powers.
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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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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.
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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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Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals composing them are numerous, free, and active but they are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity are employed in the service of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary man taken by himself.
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For this is the true strength of guilty kings, When they corrupt the souls of those they rule.
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The governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness that of Hebraism, strictness of conscience .
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English civilization the humanizing, the bringing into one harmonious and truly humane life, of the whole body of English society that is what interests me.
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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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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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The difference between genuine poetry and the poetry of Dryden, Pope, and all their school, is briefly this: their poetry is conceived and composed in their wits, genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul.
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Religion--that voice of the deepest human experience.
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