Famous Matthew Arnold Quotes

Home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs and unpopular names and impossible loyalties.
-- Matthew Arnold

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.
-- Matthew Arnold

All the biblical miracles will at last disappear with the progress of science.
-- Matthew Arnold

And see all sights from pole to pole And glance, and nod, and bustle by, And never once possess our soul Before we die.
-- Matthew Arnold

But each day brings from its pretty dust Our soon choked souls to fill.
-- Matthew Arnold

But each day brings its petty dust our soon-choked souls to fill, and we forget because we must, and not because we will.
-- Matthew Arnold

Children of men! the unseen Power, whose eye Forever doth accompany mankind, Hath look'd on no religion scornfully That men did ever find.
-- Matthew Arnold

Christianity is a source; no one supply of water and refreshment that comes from it can be called the sum of Christianity. It is a mistake, and may lead to much error, to exhibit any series of maxims, even those of the Sermon on the Mount, as the ultimate sum and formula into which Christianity may be run up.
-- Matthew Arnold

Culture is "To know the best that has been said and thought in the world."
-- Matthew Arnold

Culture is the passion for sweetness and light, and the passion for making them prevail.
-- Matthew Arnold

Every time the words "contrition" or "humility" drop from the lips of a prophet or psalmist, Christianity appears.
-- Matthew Arnold

God's Wisdom and God's Goodness!--Ah, but fools Mis-define thee, till God knows them no more. Wisdom and goodness they are God!--what schools Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore. This no Saint preaches, and this no Church rules: 'Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.
-- Matthew Arnold

Hark! ah, the nightingale-- The tawny-throated! Hark from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark!--what pain! . . . . Again--thou hearest? Eternal passion! Eternal pain!
-- Matthew Arnold

Her cabin'd ample spirit, It fluttered and fail'd for breath; Tonight it doth inherit The vasty hall of death.
-- Matthew Arnold

I met a preacher there I knew, and said, Ill and overworked, how fare you in this scene? Bravely! said he; for I of late have been Much cheered with thoughts of Christ, the living bread.
-- Matthew Arnold

I must not say that she was true, Yet let me say that she was fair; And they, that lovely face who view, They should not ask if truth be there.
-- Matthew Arnold

If Paris that brief flight allow, My humble tomb explore! It bears: "Eternity, be thou My refuge!" and no more.
-- Matthew Arnold

Journalism is literature in a hurry.
-- Matthew Arnold

Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows Like the wave; Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men. Love tends life a little grace, A few sad smiles; and then, Both are laid in one cold place, In the grave.
-- Matthew Arnold

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
-- Matthew Arnold