01c. 1920 ADTo read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
02c. 1920 ADThe basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
03c. 1920 ADIn the nightmare of the darkAll the dogs of Europe bark,And the living nations wait,Each sequestered in its hate;Intellectual disgraceStares from every human face,And the seas of pity lieLocked and frozen in each eye.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
05c. 1920 ADThe most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
06c. 1920 ADMurder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society must take the place of the victim, and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
07c. 1920 ADPractical jokes are a demonstration that the distinction between seriousness and play is not a law of nature but a social convention which can be broken, and that a man does not always require a serious motive for deceiving another.Two men, dressed as city employees, block off a busy street and start digging it up. The traffic cop, motorists and pedestrians assume that this familiar scene has a practical explanation – a water main or an electric cable is being repaired – and make no attempt to use the street. In fact, however, the two diggers are private citizens in disguise who have no business there.All practical jokes are anti-social acts, but this does not necessarily mean that all practical jokes are immoral. A moral practical joke exposes some flaw of society which is hindrance to a real community or brotherhood. That it should be possible for two private individuals to dig up a street without being stopped is a just criticism of the impersonal life of a large city where most people are strangers to each other, not brothers; in a village where all inhabitants know each other personally, the deception would be impossible.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
10c. 1920 ADAlways the following wind of historyOf others' wisdom makes a buoyant airTill we come suddenly on pockets where Is nothing loud but us; where voices seemAbrupt, untrained, competing with no lieOur fathers shouted once.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
11c. 1920 ADTo save your world, you asked this man to die:Would this man, could he see you now, asked why?W.H. Auden / quote ↗
12c. 1920 ADEvery man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
13c. 1920 ADLaziness acknowledges the relation of the present to the past but ignores its relation to the future; impatience acknowledge its relation to the future but ignores its relation to the past; neither the lazy nor the impatient man, that is, accepts the present instant in its full reality and so cannot love his neighbour completely.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
14c. 1920 ADThe desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrewsNot to be born is the best for manThe second best is a formal orderThe dance's pattern, dance while you can.Dance, dance, for the figure is easyThe tune is catching and will not stopDance till the stars come down from the raftersDance, dance, dance till you drop.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
16c. 1920 ADMoreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses have no right whatsoever to resist them.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
17c. 1920 ADNo poet or novelist wishes he was the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number believe their wish has been granted.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
18c. 1920 ADSome writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
19c. 1920 ADI know nothing, except what everyone knows - if there when Grace dances, I should dance.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
20c. 1920 ADEvil is unspectacular and always human,And shares our bed and eats at our own table ....W.H. Auden / quote ↗
21c. 1920 ADThe enlightenment driven away,The habit-forming pain,Mismanagement and grief:We must suffer them all again.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
22c. 1920 ADAnd maps can really point to placesWhere life is evil now:Nanking. Dachau.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
23c. 1920 ADMy second thoughts condemnAnd wonder how I dareTo look you in the eye.What right have I to swearEven at one a.m.To love you till I die?Earth meets too many crimesFor fibs to interest her;If I can give my word,Forgiveness can recurAny number of timesIn Time. Which is absurd.Tempus fugit. Quite.So finish up your drink.All flesh is grass. It is. But who on earth can thinkWith heavy heart or lightOf what will come of this?W.H. Auden / quote ↗
24c. 1920 ADMurder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession.W.H. Auden / quote ↗
