Matthew Arnold Zitate

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“For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion.”

“But be his
My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul,
From first youth tested up to extreme old age,
Business could not make dull, nor passion wild;
Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole.”

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

“Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming.”

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

“Journalism is literature in a hurry.”

“The free-thinking of one age is the common sense of the next.”

“If there ever comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known.”

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

“Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.”

“Art still has truth. Take refuge there.”

“Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born,
With nowhere yet to rest my head,
Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.”

“Resolve to be thyself; and know, that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery.”

“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. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!”

“We mortal millions live alone.”

“Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep.”

“English civilization — the humanizing, the bringing into one harmonious and truly humane life, of the whole body of English society — that is what interests me.”

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

“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.”

“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 longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us, to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.”

“The crown of literature is poetry.”

“Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn evening. The Field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither’d leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent;—hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!”

“The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call the Philistines. Culture says: “Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just like these people by having it?””

“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.”

“Radiant with ardour divine!
Beacons of Hope ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow.”

“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.”

“Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron’s struggle cease.”

“Thou hast no right to bliss.”

“Creep into thy narrow bed,
Creep, and let no more be said!”