Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
W. H. AudenRead
We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that our purpose is to assist others, while questioning the purpose of others.
W. H. Auden's quote reflects a profound truth about human existence, positing that the essence of life lies in our contributions to one another. It emphasizes altruism and the importance of community, while simultaneously provoking thought about the reciprocal nature of existence and whether everyone is truly engaged in a mutual effort to assist each other.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about community service.
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.'
It's so graceless, being a martyr. It's honoring your adversaries too much.
Keep things at arm's length... If you let anything come too near you want to hold on to it. And there is nothing a man can hold on to.
But the fact of it was that I liked it out there, a ruin devoid of human vanities, clean of human illusions, an empty place reclaimed by the weather where a woman plays an organ to stop the wind's whining and an old man plays ball with a dog named Duke. I could tell you that I came back because I had promises to keep, but maybe it was because nobody asked me to stay.
Utopia lies at the horizon. When I draw nearer by two steps, it retreats two steps. If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead. No matter how far I go, I can never reach it. What, then, is the purpose of utopia? It is to cause us to advance.
Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed.
Laws always lose in energy what the government gains in extent.
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