Quotes
Quotes - Arnold
The Greek word euphuia, a finely tempered nature, gives exactly the notion of perfection as culture brings us to perceive it; a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of things"--as Swift . . . most happily calls them in his Battle of the Books, "the two noblest of things, sweetness and light."
The pursuit of the perfect, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
Culture is the passion for sweetness and light, and (what is more) the passion for making them prevail.
Pity and need Make all flesh kin. There in no caste in blood.
The kings of modern thought are dumb.
Six years--six little years--six drops of time.
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.
The sunbeams dropped Their gold, and, passing in porch and niche, Softened to shadows, silvery, pale, and dim, As if the very Day paused and grew Eve.
Early violets blue and white Dying for their love of light.
On one she smiles, and he was blest; She smiles elsewhere--we make a din! But 'twas not love which heaved her breast, Fair child!--it was the bliss within.
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.
Youth dreams a bliss on this side of death. It dreams a rest, if not more deep, More grateful than this marble sleep; It hears a voice within it tell: Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well. 'Tis all perhaps which man acquires, But 'tis not what our youth desires.
