Quotes · Skopia

23 quotes

For the creation of a master-work of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment.

Matthew Arnold

1865

★ 1.0

Essay · Philosophical literature

As for rioting, the old Roman way of dealing with that is always the right one; flog the rank and file, and fling the ringleaders from the Tarpeian rock.

Matthew Arnold

1869

★ 1.0

The grand style arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.

Matthew Arnold

1862

★ 1.1

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.

Matthew Arnold

1903

★ 1.9

The World in which we live and move Outlasts aversion, outlasts love. Outlasts each effort, interest, hope, Remorse, grief, joy.

Matthew Arnold

1849

★ 1.9

Poem

Is it so small a thing To have enjoy'd the sun, To have liv'd light in the spring, To have lov'd, to have thought, to have done.

Matthew Arnold

Empedocles on Etna · 1852

★ 1.9

Poem

And sigh that one thing only has been lent To youth and age in common—discontent.

Matthew Arnold

1852

★ 1.9

Essay · Philosophical literature

Hebraism and Hellenism,—between these two points of influence moves our world.

Matthew Arnold

Culture and Anarchy · 1868

★ 1.9

Sociology

Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives it.

Matthew Arnold

Culture and Anarchy · 1869

★ 1.9

That which in England we call the middle class is in America virtually the nation.

Matthew Arnold

A Word About America · 1882

★ 1.9

The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.

Matthew Arnold

God and the Bible · 1875

★ 2.0

Inequality...has the natural and necessary effect, under the present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalising our lower class.

Matthew Arnold

Equality · 1879

★ 3.5

Poem

The Day in its hotness, The strife with the palm; The Night in its silence, The Stars in their calm.

Matthew Arnold

Empedocles on Etna · 1852

★ 3.6

Poem

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

Matthew Arnold

1852

★ 3.6

And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well—but 'tis not true.

Matthew Arnold

The Buried Life · 1852

★ 3.6

Poem

The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, The heart less bounding at emotion new, And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again.

Matthew Arnold

1866

★ 3.6

Poem

Thou hast no right to bliss.

Matthew Arnold

Empedocles on Etna · 1852

★ 3.7

Poem

Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.

Matthew Arnold

1853

★ 3.7

Poem

Who order'd, that their longing's fire Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd? Who renders vain their deep desire? A God, a God their severance rul'd! And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.

Matthew Arnold

1852

★ 5.2

The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd; But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach · 1867

★ 5.2

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