Quote

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

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Ah, love, let us be true To one another!
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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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One has often wondered whether upon the whole earth there is anything so unintelligent, so unapt to perceive how the world is really going, as an ordinary young Englishman of our upper class.
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The brave, impetuous heart yields everywhere to the subtle, contriving head.
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Greatness is a spiritual condition.
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Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling
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Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play, Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away.
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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.
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Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.
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Religion--that voice of the deepest human experience.
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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 freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
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I am bound by my own definition of criticism : a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.
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Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows Like the wave Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men. Love tends life a little grace, A few sad smiles and then, Both are laid in one cold place, In the grave.
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Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said!
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Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one
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Now the great winds shoreward blow Now the salt tides seaward flow Now the wild white horses play Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
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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.
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Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask. Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge.
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The grand stye arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.
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