Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
W. H. AudenRead
Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the weight of the world and the melancholy that can accompany existence.
W. H. Auden's quote captures the essence of human sorrow in a complex world filled with challenges and emotional burdens. It suggests that as we navigate through life, often veiled in uncertainty and sadness, we may feel distanced from genuine happiness, highlighting the juxtaposition of joy and despair inherent in the human experience.
In practice
I shared this quote during a poetry reading to illustrate the complexities of human emotions.
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.'
Life is an error-making and an error-correctin g process, and nature in marking man's papers will grade him for wisdom as measured both by survival and by the quality of life of those who survive.
My hope is to create spaces where people of all stripes can come together and speak at a lower decibel level. We make more sense that way. We sound more like our real selves that way.
Belief Systems contradict both science and ordinary "common sense." B.S. contradicts science, because it claims certitude and science can never achieve certitude: it can only say, "This model"- or theory, or interpretation of the data- "fits more of the facts known at this date than any rival model." We can never know if the model will fit the facts that might come to light in the next millennium or even in the next week.
Every one should find some suitable time, day or night, to sink into his depths, each according to his own fashion. Not every one is able to engage in contemplative prayer.
Do not look at the faces in the illustrated papers. Look at the faces in the street.
I feel George Wallace symbolizes something in the past which America has rejected.
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