Matthew Arnold Quotes

Burke is so great because, almost alone in England, he brings thought to bear upon politics, he saturates politics with thought.

Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things.

The grand style arises in poetry, when a noble nature, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.

In his poetry as well as in his life Shelley was indeed ‘a beautiful and ineffectual angel’, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.

(Poetry) a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.

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

Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play, Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away.

Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood; Nature is stubborn, man would fain adore; Nature is fickle, man hath no need of rest; Nature forgives no debt, and fears no grave.

Resolve to be thyself and know that he who finds himself loves his misery.

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