A collection of notable Matthew Arnold quotes and sayings on communication, beauty, culture, life, truth, love, dream despair, thought, man, power etc.
Matthew Arnold was a well-known English poet and cultural critic. His notable works include ‘Dover Beach’, ‘The Scholar-Gipsy’ and ‘Thyrsis’. He is classified as a sage writer who reprimands and commands the reader on social issues prevalent in society. Arnold was later elected as a Professor of Poetry at Oxford, where he was the first one to deliver lectures in English rather than Latin. In the years to come, he began his work as a critic on literary, social, cultural, journalistic and religious issues. Harold Bloom believed that his credentials in the field of literary and social criticism remained unmatched till the 20th century, despite his derivative class of poetry. Matthew Arnold once stated that, "Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things." We have collected some of his quotes and sayings from his works and observations. Here are some other beautiful excerpts from his works which has remained eternal through the ages.
If there ever comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known.
Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;- on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Matthew Arnold
Wandering between two worlds, one dead
The other powerless to be born,
With nowhere yet to rest my head
Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.
To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive.
Matthew Arnold
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
But now I only hear
It's melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
