Matthew Arnold Quotes

When I was in school, I really thought about soul a lot. I was listening a lot to Bjork and to the Commodores. I really wanted to know how they felt. And especially with Bjork, the music there told me wow, that's really her soul there.

...a writer's works, like the water in an artesian well, mount to a height which is in proportion to the depth to which suffering has penetrated his soul.

Art is one of the sources through which the soul expresses itself and inspires others. But to express art thoroughly, one must have the inner emotions opened thoroughly.

The generous Critic fann'd the Poet's fire, And taught the world with reason to admire.

Music, to me, is something that connects to the soul.

A great melodic line is like a person's soul, and coming up with an original melody, it can be like you are illustrating the soul.

The soul is like a violin string: it makes music only when it is stretched.

Every grain of experience is food for the greedy growing soul of the artist.

I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say.

In a word, poetry can not exist without emotion, or, if you will, without a movement of the soul which regulates the words.

My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.

A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating.

Natural emotion is the soul of poetry, as melody is of music; the same faults are engendered by over-study of either art; there is a lack of sincerity, of irresistible impulse in both the poet and the, composer.

Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have been inconceivably near to it. It is only by a miracle that poetry is written at all. It is not recoverable thought, but a hue caught from a vaster receding thought.

Among all men on the earth bards have a share of honor and reverence, because the muse has taught them songs and loves the race of bards.

A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.

We should nourish our souls on the dew of Poesy, and manure them as well.

Music and art and poetry attune the soul to God.

Of all the arts poetry (which owes its origin almost entirely to genius and will least be guided by precept or example) maintains the first rank.

The soul of the great musician can only be expressed in music.

Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.

The soul of Man must quicken to creation.

Mozart never composed anything, ever! He copied what was written on his soul.