Quote #74

Of these two literatures, as of the intellect of Europe in general, the main effort, for now many years, has been a critical effort; the endeavour, in all branches of knowledge-theology, philosophy, history, art, science-to see the object as in itself it really is.

More from Matthew Arnold

  1. The translator of Homer should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author:-that he is eminently rapid; that he is e…
  2. The grand style arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.
  3. Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade, With a free, onward impulse brushing through, By night, the sil…
  4. For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not…
  5. O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; Before this strange disease of modern life, With…
  6. Critical power...tends to make an intellectual situation of which the creative power can profitably avail itself. It tends to establish an …
  7. And amongst us one, Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne.
  8. There is the world of ideas and there is the world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the one and the English the other; but…

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