Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnoldwas 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...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth24 December 1822
dream sweet cities
And that sweet city with her dreaming spires, She needs not June for beauty's heightening...
change men soul
For what wears out the life of mortal men? 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls; Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls And numb the elastic powers.
god fate air
We, peopling the void air, Make Gods to whom to impute The ills we ought to bear; With God and Fate to rail at, suffering easily.
heart beats breasts
The same heart beats in every human breast.
hate men dust
Most men eddy about Here and there-eat and drink, Chatter and love and hate, Gather and squander, are raised Aloft, are hurled in the dust, Striving blindly, achieving Nothing; and then they die- Perish;-and no one asks Who or what they have been.
light mind mock
Mind is a light which the Gods mock us with, To lead those false who trust it.
done breasts psychoanalysis
Once read thy own breast right, And thou hast done with fears.
dream men world
Man errs not that he deems His welfare his true aim, He errs because he dreams The world does but exist that welfare to bestow.
crowns calm tranquility
Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well.
dream wall work
Most men in a brazen prison live, Where, in the sun's hot eye, With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give, Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall.
cat dumb might
Cruel, but composed and bland, Dumb, inscrutable and grand, So Tiberius might have sat, Had Tiberius been a cat.
voice leaving warning
The eloquent voice of our century uttered, shortly before leaving the world, a warning cry against the "Anglo- Saxon contagion.
life eye taught-us
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 his like a thunder roll. . . . We watch'd the fount of fiery life Which serv'd for that Titanic life.
intellectual culture moral
Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one