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
men culture apostles
Men of culture are the true apostles of equality
ears letters tails
The "hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and, pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits," this good fellow carried hidden in his nature, apparently, something destined to develop into a necessity for humane letters.
dream law soul
Thought and science follow their own law of development; they are slowly elaborated in the growth and forward pressure of humanity, in what Shakespeare calls ...The prophetic soul, Of the wide world dreaming on things to come.
atheist biblical miracle
All the biblical miracles will at last disappear with the progress of science.
class justice natural
Inequality has the natural and necessary effect, under the present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class.
spiritual greatness conditions
Greatness is a spiritual condition.
sun aging enjoyed
Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun...
character perfection personality
Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives it.
happiness joy world
The world hath failed to impart the joy our youth forebodes; failed to fill up the void which in our breasts we bear.
perfection mind inward
Culture, then, is a study of perfection, and perfection which insists on becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of circumstances.
nature sky light
Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the sky, to have loved, to have thought, to have done?
life spiritual greatness
Greatness is a spiritual condition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration; and the outward proof of possessing greatness is that we excite love, interest, and admiration.
dream night pay
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.
lying moon sea
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.