Matthew Arnold

Nature's great law, and the law of all men's minds? To its own impulse every creature stirs: Live by thy light, and Earth will live by hers.

Too fast we live, too much are tried, Too harass'd, to attain Wordsworth's sweet calm, or Goethe's wide And luminous view to gain.

The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.

When Byron's eyes were shut in death, We bow'd our head and held our breath. He taught us little; but our soul Had felt his like a thunder roll. . . . We watch'd the fount of fiery life Which serv'd for that Titanic life.

He spoke, and loos'd our heart in tears. He laid us as we lay at birth On the cool flowery lap of earth.

Time may restore us in his course Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force: But where will Europe's latter hour Again find Wordsworth's healing power?

His expression may often be called bald . . . but it is bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur.

Force and right are the governors of this world; force till right is ready.

The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.

Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age, More fortunate, alas! than we, Which without hardness will be sage, And gay without frivolity.