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About this quote

What does it mean?
Poetry is the most beautiful and effective way to express things.
In plain terms
Poetry is the best way to say things clearly and beautifully.
What can you take from it?
Use poetry to communicate with beauty and impact.

Where it applies

  • writing
  • public speaking
  • storytelling

Putting it to work

  • write poetically
  • focus on beauty
  • speak effectively

Questions to consider

  • What makes speech effective?
  • Is poetry the best mode?

Another view

Direct prose can sometimes be more effective than poetry.

More from Matthew Arnold

  1. Whispering from her [Oxford's] towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age...Home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible …

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  2. Philistine must have originally meant, in the mind of those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the children of the light.

    Permalink to quote #84
  3. I am bound by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.

    Permalink to quote #81

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