Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
W. H. AudenRead
Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Humans are shaped by their history, unable to fully escape it or recreate it.
This quote by W. H. Auden emphasizes the unique position of human beings in the grand narrative of time. We are continually influenced by our past experiences and historical context, which shapes our present and future actions. While we cannot relive our past, its impacts linger, making our journey forward a complex interplay of memory and aspiration.
Themes
HistoryHumanityPastMemoryExistence
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the importance of history in shaping our identities, this quote could illustrate our relationship with our past.
More from W. H. Auden
All quotes βThat 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.
W. H. AudenRead
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.
W. H. AudenRead
History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.
W. H. AudenRead
Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
W. H. AudenRead
'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'
W. H. AudenRead
Similar quotes
No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become.
Matthew DesmondRead
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Henry David ThoreauRead
What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up, And be discharged, and straight wound up anew? No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets: May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.
Robert BrowningRead
It [feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
'Death with dignity' is our society's expression of the universal yearning to achieve a graceful triumph over the stark and often repugnant finality of life's last sputterings. But the fact is, death is not a confrontation. It is simply an event in the sequence of nature's ongoing rhythms.
Sherwin B. NulandRead
What exactly is it that humans do that is specifically human? There has to be something. How odd it is for billions of people to be alive, yet not one of them is really quite sure of what makes people people.
Douglas CouplandRead