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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

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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
Found
Depend
Truth
Brings
Thing
Depends
Every
Level
Unbeliever
Men
Writer
Unbelievers
Levels
Heroism
Common
Mediocrity
Upon
Historian

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How many minds--almost all the great ones--were formed in secrecy and solitude!
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Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the sky, to have loved, to have thought, to have done?
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Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well.
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Hither and thither spins The wind-borne mirroring soul, A thousand glimpses wins, And never sees a whole.
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Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?
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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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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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Good poetry does undoubtedly tend to form the soul and character it tends to beget a love of beauty and of truth in alliance together, it suggests, however indirectly, high and noble principles of action, and it inspires the emotion so helpful in making principles operative.
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It is almost impossible to exaggerate the proneness of the human mind to take miracles as evidence, and to seek for miracles as evidence.
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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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Because thou must not dream, thou need not despair.
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Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes Ah, would that I did too!
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I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.
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And we forget because we must and not because we will.
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They... who await. No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.
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Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling
Matthew Arnold
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Greatness is a spiritual condition.
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Ah, love, let us be true To one another!
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Bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur.
Matthew Arnold
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Eutrapelia . A happy and gracious flexibility, Pericles calls this quality of the Athenians...lucidity of thought, clearness and propriety of language, freedom from prejudice and freedom from stiffness, openness of mind, amiability of manners.
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