Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
W. H. AudenRead
The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.
Interpretation
Children's expressions are superficial and do not yet reveal their true selves.
This quote by W. H. Auden suggests that the outward appearances or expressions (countenances) of children, similar to animals, do not convey their true inner identities. At a young age, individuals have not yet forged a strong personal identity or character, and their outward expressions are mere masks that do not fully capture the complexity of their developing selves.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about child development in a parenting seminar.
Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
That the speech of self-disclosure should be translatable seems to me very odd, but I am convinced that it is. The conclusion that I draw is that the only quality which all human being without exception possess is uniqueness: any characteristic, on the other hand, which one individual can be recognized as having in common with another, like red hair or the English language, implies the existence of other individual qualities which this classification excludes.
Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do; it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire; it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.
History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.
Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'
Satan hasn't a single salaried helper; the Opposition employs a million.
I am not tired of my work, neither am I tired of the world; yet, when Christ calls me home, I shall go with gladness.
I feel half faded away like some figure in the background of an old picture.
Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
We have so exalted a notion of the human soul that we cannot bear to be despised, or even not to be esteemed by it. Man, in fact, places all his happiness in this esteem.
In any institution-factory, university, health center, or whatever-there are a variety of interests that ought to be represented in decision-making: the work force itself, the community in which it is located, users of its products or services, institutions that compete for the same resources. These interests should be directly represented in democratic structures that displace and eliminate private ownership of the means of production or resources, an anachronism with no legitimacy.
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