Quotes from Matthew Arnold

begin, and cease, and then again begin

Aristocracies, those children of the established fact, are for epochs of concentration. In epochs of expansion, epochs such as that in which we now live, epochs when always the warning voice is again heard: Now is the judgment of this world , -- in such epochs aristocracies with their natural clinging to the established fact, their want of sense for the flux of things, for the inevitable transitoriness of all human institutions, are bewildered and helpless.

Is there no life, but these alone? Madman or slave, must man be one?

Therefore, when we speak of ourselves as divided into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace, we must be understood always to imply that within each of these classes there are a certain number of aliens, if we may so call them,??persons who are mainly led, not by their class spirit, but by a general humane spirit, by the love of human perfection

The difficulty for democracy is, how to find and keep high ideals.

Everything in our political life tends to hide from us that there is anything wiser than our ordinary selves, and to prevent our getting the notion of a paramount right reason.

How generally, with how many of us, are the main concerns of life limited to these two: the concern for making money, and the concern for saving our souls!

No individual life can be truly prosperous, passed . . . in the midst of men who suffer.

Spells? Mistrust them. Mind is the spell which governs earth and heaven. Man has a mind with which to plan his safety. Know that, and help thyself. Empedocles on Etna: Act I, Scene II

So while we praise and esteem the zeal of the Nonconformists in walking staunchly by the best light they have, and desire to take no whit from it, we seek to add to this what we call sweetness and light, and develope their full humanity more perfectly; and to seek this is certainly not to be the enemy of the Nonconformists.

They... who await No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.

And these, all labouring for a lord, Eat not the fruit of their own hands: Which is the heaviest of all plagues, To that man's mind, who understands. - The Sick King in Bokhara

Vain is the effort to forget. Some day I shall be cold, I know, As is the eternal moonlit snow Of the high Alps, to which I go-- But ah, not yet, not yet! Vain is the agony of grief. 'Tis true, indeed, an iron knot Ties straitly up from mine thy lot, And were it snapt--thou lov'st me not! But is despair relief?

Not deep the poet sees, but wide. –

Waiting from heaven for the spark to fall.

For what wears out the life of mortal men? 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls: 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of the strongest souls, And numb the elastic powers. Till having us'd our nerves with bliss and teen, And tir'd upon a thousand schemes our wit, To the just-pausing Genius we remit Our worn out life, and are -- what we have been. - The Scholar Gipsy