Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
W. H. AudenRead
The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the differing ways our senses interact with familiarity and novelty.
W. H. Auden's quote highlights the contrasting behaviors of our ears and eyes in how they respond to sound and sight. The ear often seeks out the familiar, showing a tendency to prefer what it knows, while the eye is drawn to new experiences and can become weary of the routine. This observation invites us to consider how we engage with the world and the importance of balancing our experiences with both familiarity and novelty.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about art appreciation, emphasizing the need for fresh perspectives.
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.
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Nothing came easy. I was just born with a need to explore every part of my mind. And with long searching and hard work, I became devoted to my restlessness.
I consider the difference between a system founded on _x000D_ the legislatures only, and one founded on the people, to be the true difference between a league or treaty and a constitution.
Man is not interesting without some imperfection
The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.
The guarantee that our self enjoys an intended relation to the outer world is most, if not all, we ask from religion. God is the self projected onto reality by our natural and necessary optimism. He is the not-me personified.
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