MATTHEW ARNOLD QUOTES

English poet & critic (1822-1888)

Matthew Arnold quote

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 as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Dover Beach


Lack of recent information is responsible for more mistakes of judgment than erroneous reasoning.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

attributed, "The Living Law", Harper's Weekly, February 26, 1916

Tags: mistakes


Yet they, believe me, who await
No gifts from Chance, have conquer'd Fate.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

"Resignation"

Tags: chance


Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

"Sohrab and Rustum"

Tags: truth


Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die,
Like spring flowers.
Our vaunted life is one long funeral.
Men dig graves, with bitter tears,
For their dead hopes; and all,
Mazed with doubts, and sick with fears,
Count the hours.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

"A Question: To Fausta"


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

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Empedocles on Etna

Tags: nature


When Byron's eyes were shut in death,
We bow'd our head and held our breath.
He taught us little: but our soul
Had felt him like the thunder's roll.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Memorial Verses

Tags: Lord Byron


We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I do not know.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Essays on Criticism


Let the long contention cease!
Geese are swans, and swans are geese.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

The Last Word


Journalism is literature in a hurry.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

attributed, The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners

Tags: journalism


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.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Essays in Criticism, Second Series

Tags: poetry


But each day brings its petty dust
Our soon-chok'd souls to fill,
And we forget because we must,
And not because we will.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

"Absence"


Miracles do not happen.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

preface, Literature and Dogma

Tags: miracles


Such a price
The Gods exact for song;
To become what we sing.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

"The Strayed Reveller to Ulysses"

Tags: singing


Art still has truth. Take refuge there.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Memorial Verses

Tags: art


Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

"A Question: To Fausta"

Tags: change


With women the heart argues, not the mind.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Merope

Tags: women


So, loath to suffer mute.
We, peopling the void air,
Make Gods to whom to impute
The ills we ought to bear.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Empedocles on Etna

Tags: god


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.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

"Democracy"

Tags: democracy


Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive and wisely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

"Heinrich Heine", Essays in Criticism, First Series

Tags: poetry