H. Auden
H. Auden
car assassins salad
The parlour cars and Pullmans are packed also with scented assassins, salad-eaters who murder on milk.
life fate species
Fate succumbs many a species: one alone jeopardises itself.
money book confession
Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.
happiness
No being can make another one happy.
cat way glad
Cats can be very funny, and have the oddest ways of showing they're glad to see you...
facts firsts get-up
Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards.
beautiful falling-in-love reflection
Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading.
writing interesting suffering
Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.
love country attitude
We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbor because our natural attitude toward the other is one of either indifference or hostility.
crazy staring
All that we are not stares back at what we are.
heart giving ashes
A small grove massacred to the last ash, An oak with heart-rot, give away the show: This great society is going to smash; They cannot fool us with how fast they go, How much they cost each other and the gods. A culture is no better than its woods.
love children believe
God is Love, we are taught as children to believe. But when we first begin to get some inkling of how He loves us, we are repelled; it seems so cold, indeed, not love at all as we understand the word.
compassion evil return
Those to whom evil is doneDo evil in return.
funny science simple
Of course, Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.