Quotes by Matthew Arnold

About Matthew Arnold:

Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits;- on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Matthew Arnold

Alas, is even Love too weak to unlock the heart and let it speak? Are even lovers powerless to reveal To one another what indeed they feel?

Matthew Arnold

Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here a...

Matthew Arnold

The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.

Matthew Arnold

But often, in the world’s most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life; A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course; A lo...

Matthew Arnold

Only--but this is rare-- When a beloved hand is laid in ours, When, jaded with the rush and glare Of the interminable hours, Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear, When our world-deafen'd ear Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd-- A bolt is ...

Matthew Arnold

Up the still, glistening beaches, Up the creeks we will hie, Over banks of bright seaweed The ebb-tide leaves dry. We will gaze, from the sand-hills, At the white, sleeping town; At the church on the hill-side— And then come back down. Singing: "Th...

Matthew Arnold

Culture is to know the best that has been said and thought in the world.

Matthew Arnold

Still bent to make some port he knows not where, still standing for some false impossible shore.

Matthew Arnold

The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.

Matthew Arnold

It is so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done.

Matthew Arnold

Waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.

Matthew Arnold

And we forget because we must and not because we will.

Matthew Arnold

Resolve to be thyself: and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.

Matthew Arnold

Not a having and a resting, but a growing and becoming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives it.

Matthew Arnold

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

Because thou must not dream, thou need not despair.

Matthew Arnold

But often, in the world's most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life; A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course.

Matthew Arnold

Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again. For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day.

Matthew Arnold

Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.

Matthew Arnold

Author Bio

  • NameMatthew Arnold
  • DescriptionEnglish poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools
  • BornDecember 24, 1822
  • DiedApril 15, 1888
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionPoet; Writer
  • WorksThe Scholar-Gypsy; Thyrsis; Dover Beach; Tristram And Iseult; To Marguerite: Continued; Sohrab And Rustum; Balder Dead; On Translating Homer; Culture And Anarchy