Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
W. H. AudenRead
One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the dehumanizing and oppressive nature of industrial work environments.
W. H. Auden's quote suggests that the experience of walking through an assembly factory is so bleak and mechanical that it evokes feelings of being in hell. It speaks to the harsh realities of industrial life, where individuals may feel reduced to mere cogs in a machine, highlighting issues of toil, alienation, and the loss of personal identity in a production-driven society.
Themes
FactoryHellDehumanizationWorkAlienation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about labor rights and working conditions.
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
If you take a lie and allow your desire for the truth, you'll end up with some truth - not fact, but something that gets you closer to the truth. That's what we want. When we go to a play, we need to be assured that the experience we're having.
Denis JohnsonRead
Money poisons you when you've got it, and starves you when you haven't.
D. H. LawrenceRead
If you look at life as a whole, we have to admit life's good where we live. But in an evil Twilight Zone kind of way there's nothing else to choose. In the old days there was always a Bohemia or a creative under-world to join if the mainstream life wasn't your bag - or a life of crime, or even religion.And now there's only the system. All other options have evaporated. For most people it's the System or what... death? There's nothing. There's no way out now.
Douglas CouplandRead
If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.
Anne LamottRead
A woman can walk miles without making one single step forward. As a child born in a harem, I instinctively knew that to live is to open closed doors. To live is to look outside. To live is to step out. Life is trespassing.
Fatema MernissiRead
Leave greatness to others. Become so small that no one can see you. This conviction results from growing devotion to the supreme reality.
Sri Nisargadatta MaharajRead