Quotes from Civilization in the United States — Matthew Arnold
1822–1888 England
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3 quotes
What really dissatisfies in American civilisation is the want of the interesting, a want due chiefly to the want of those two great elements of the interesting, which are elevation and beauty.
Civilization in the United States (1888)
If one were searching for the best means to efface and kill in a whole nation the discipline of self-respect, the feeling for what is elevated, he could do no better than take the American newspapers.
Civilization in the United States (1888)
Even in our poor old country, with its aristocratic class materialized, its middle class vulgarized, its lower class brutalized, there are to be found individuals, as I have again and again said, lovers of the humane life, lovers of perfection, who emerge in all classes, and who, while they are more or less in conflict with the present, point to a better future.
Civilization in the United States (1888)