The collection / 70 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1855 AD

Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask. Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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02c. 1855 AD

Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that I did too!

Matthew Arnold / quote

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03c. 1855 AD

To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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04c. 1855 AD

Time may restore us in his course Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force; But where will Europe's latter hour Again find Wordsworth's healing power?

Matthew Arnold / quote

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05c. 1855 AD

Wandering between two worlds,—one dead, The other powerless to be born.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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06c. 1855 AD

The kings of modern thought are dumb.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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07c. 1855 AD

Philistine must have originally meant, in the mind of those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the children of the light.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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08c. 1855 AD

There is no better motto which it [culture] can have than these words of Bishop Wilson, "To make reason and the will of God prevail."

Matthew Arnold / quote

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09Undated

Criticism is a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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10Undated

Culture is the passion for sweetness and light, and (what is more) the passion for making them prevail.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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11Undated

Greatness is a spiritual condition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration; and the outward proof of greatness is that we excite love, interest, and admiration.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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12Undated

It is matter of the commonest remark how a timid man who is in love will show courage, or an indolent man will show diligence.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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13Undated

Poetry interprets in two ways: by expressing with magical felicity the physiognomy and movements of the outer world; and by expressing with inward conviction the ideas and laws of the inward.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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14Undated

Powerful attachment will give a man spirit and confidence which he could by no means call up or command of himself; and in this mood he can do wonders which would not be possible to him without it.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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15Undated

Sects of men are apt to be shut up in sectarian ideas of their own, and to be less open to new general ideas than the main body of men.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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16Undated

Sin is not a monster to be mused on, but an impotence to be got rid of.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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17Undated

Tasks in hours of insight willed, / In hours of gloom must be fulfilled.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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18Undated

The way, truth, and life have been found in Christianity, and will not now be found outside of it.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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19Undated

Thinking about sin, beyond what is indispensable for the firm effort to get rid of it, is waste of energy and waste of time.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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20Undated

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.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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21Undated

Matthew Arnold / quote

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22Undated

Wherever there is cupidity, there the blessing of the Gospel cannot rest. The actual poor, therefore, may altogether fail to be objects of that blessing, the actual rich may be the objects of it in the highest degree.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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23Undated

Without poetry our science will appear incomplete, and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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24Undated

Without some strong motive to the contrary, men united by the pursuit of a clearly defined common aim of irresistible attractiveness naturally coalesce; and since they coalesce naturally, they are clearly right in coalescing and find their advantage in it.

Matthew Arnold / quote

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