W. H. Auden Quotes About Past

Quotes about: Past

• It is already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure as in earlier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy. When one recalls how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not cheerful.

  W. H. Auden

  Past, Cheerful, Majority

• Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind.

  W. H. Auden

  Past, Men, History

  Dyer's Hand (1963) "D. H. Lawrence"

• Laziness acknowledges the relation of the present to the past but ignores its relation to the future; impatience acknowledge its relation to the future but ignores its relation to the past; neither the lazy nor the impatient man, that is, accepts the present instant in its full reality and so cannot love his neighbour completely.

  W. H. Auden

  Past, Reality, Men

• Warm are the still and lucky miles, White shores of longing stretch away, A light of recognition fills The whole great day, and bright The tiny world of lovers' arms. Silence invades the breathing wood Where drowsy limbs a treasure keep, Now greenly falls the learned shade Across the sleeping brows And stirs their secret to a smile. Restored! Returned! The lost are borne On seas of shipwreck home at last: See! In a fire of praising burns The dry dumb past, and we Our life-day long shall part no more.

  W. H. Auden

  Fall, Sleep, Home

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