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
horse blow play
Now the great winds shoreward blow Now the salt tides seaward flow Now the wild white horses play Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
names medicine doctors
Nor bring, to see me cease to live, Some doctor full of phrase and fame, To shake his sapient head, and give The ill he cannot cure a name.
emotion ethics morality
The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
hiking mountain baldness
Bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur.
world culture said
Culture is to know the best that has been said and thought in the world
death truth men
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.
dance culture world
Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.
done breasts psychoanalysis
Once read thy own breast right, And thou hast done with fears.
history bells foam
On the breast of that huge Mississippi of falsehood called History, a foam-bell more or less is no consequence.
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.
gay years age
Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age, More fortunate, alas! than we, Which without hardness will be sage, And gay without frivolity.
ancient-literature want sanity
Sanity -- that is the great virtue of the ancient literature; the want of that is the great defect of the modern, in spite of its variety and power.
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.
yellow looks muse
Grey time-worn marbles Hold the pure Muses. In their cool gallery, By yellow Tiber, They still look fair.