361 Quotes by 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; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

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.

Come to me in my dreams, and thenBy day I shall be well again!For so the night will more than payThe hopeless longings of the day.

But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,But often, in the din of strife,There rises an unspeakable desireAfter the knowledge of our buried life;A thirst to spend our fire and restless forceIn tracking out our true, original course;A longing to inquireInto the mystery of this heart which beatsSo wild, so deep in us—to knowWhence our lives come and where they go.

Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.

Tis not the times, 'Tis not the Sophists vex him:There is some root of suffering in himself,Some secret and unfollow'd vein of woe,Which makes the times look black and sad to him.Empedocles on Etna: Act I, Scene I

Is it so small a thingTo have enjoy'd the sun,To have liv'd light in the spring,To have lov'd, to have thought, to have done;To have advanc'd true friends, and beat down baffling foes...?

The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits;- on the French coast the lightGleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Alas, is even Love too weak to unlock the heart and let it speak? Are even lovers powerless to reveal To one another what indeed they feel?