237 quotes
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.
Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855)
The day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm;
The night in her silence,
The stars in their calm.
Empedocles on Etna (1852)
Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more,
And in that more lie all his hopes of good.
The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems (1849)
To thee only God granted
A heart ever new:
To all always open;
To all always true.
Parting (1852)
This truth — to prove, and make thine own:
‘Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone.’
I am a Liberal, yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience, reflexion, and renouncement, and I am, above all, a believer in culture.
Culture and Anarchy (1869)
How fair a lot to fill
Is left to each man still.
Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul?
Sohrab and Rustum (1853)
He has the wild stag’s foot, the lion’s heart.
Sohrab and Rustum (1853)
Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace; and America is just ourselves, with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.
Culture and Anarchy (1869)
It is not in my nature, some of my critics would rather say, not in my power, to dispute on behalf of any opinion, even my own, very obstinately.
Essays in Criticism (1865)
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another!
New Poems (1867)
The power of the Latin classic is in character, that of the Greek is in beauty. Now character is capable of being taught, learnt, and assimilated: beauty hardly.
Schools and Universities on the Continent (1868)
He slept light, an old man's sleep.
Sohrab and Rustum (1853)
Still bent to make some port he knows not where,
Still standing for some false, impossible shore.
Lack of recent information is responsible for more mistakes of judgment than erroneous reasoning.
Their ineffectual feuds and feeble hates,
Shadows of hates, but they distress them still.
Balder Dead (1855)
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
A woman, O my friends, has one desire—
To see secure, to live with, those she loves.
Merope (1858)
And sigh that only one thing has been lent
To youth and age in common — discontent.