"The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light"
About this Quote
The subtext is combative. In an era of expanding democracy and mass politics, Arnold worries that a nation can gain power while losing taste - and that “doing” will keep outrunning “knowing.” “Perfection” becomes his counterweight to Philistinism: middle-class complacency that mistakes prosperity for progress. The word “pursuit” matters too; Arnold distrusts arrival. Perfection is not a trophy but a posture, a steady resistance to the coarsening pressures of work, slogans, and tribal identity.
Contextually, the line sits inside Arnold’s argument for “culture” as an antidote to social fragmentation. He isn’t merely praising art; he’s proposing an education of desire. If people learn to want sweetness and light, they become harder to govern by panic, harder to buy off with comfort, less tempted by purity crusades. The sentence reads gentle; its ambition is political.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism, Matthew Arnold, 1869; essay "Sweetness and Light" (contains the line in question). |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Arnold, Matthew. (2026, January 16). The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-pursuit-of-perfection-then-is-the-pursuit-of-95689/
Chicago Style
Arnold, Matthew. "The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-pursuit-of-perfection-then-is-the-pursuit-of-95689/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-pursuit-of-perfection-then-is-the-pursuit-of-95689/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
