POEM: "The More Loving One" ~ WH Auden

The More Loving One: WH Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

QUOTATIONS: Language. WH Auden,

"When the language is corrupted, people lose faith in what they hear and this leads to violence." ~ WH Auden

"Yes, we are all different. Different customs, different foods, different mannerisms, different languages, but not so different that we cannot get along with one another. If we will disagree without being disagreeable." ~ J. Martin Kohe

Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Language is the dress of thought. ~Samuel Johnson



"Children, don't speak so coarsely," said Mr. Webster, who had a vague notion that some supervision should be exercised over his daughters' speech, and that a line should be drawn, but never knew quite when to draw it. He had allowed his daughters to use his library without restraint, and nothing is more fatal to maidenly delicacy of speech than the run of a good library. ~Robertson Davies, Tempest Tost

A different language is a different vision of life. ~Federico Fellini

The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor. ~Samuel Butler

Let's not become so worried about not offending anybody that we lose the ability to distinguish between respect and paranoia. ~Larry King, about political correctness, How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication

Words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Im memoriam A.H.H.," 1850

There is a certain age at which a child looks at you in all earnestness and delivers a long, pleased speech in all the true inflections of spoken English, but with not one recognizable syllable. There is no way you can tell the child that if language had been a melody, he had mastered it and done well, but that since it was in fact a sense, he had botched it utterly. ~Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Oaths are but words, and words but wind. ~Samuel Butler (1612-1680), Hudribas

Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons. ~Aldous Huxley

Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions. ~Edward R. Murrow

I like the word "indolence." It makes my laziness seem classy. ~Bern Williams





“Let us choose to believe something good can happen.” ~ J. Martin Kohe

“Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.” ~ Dave Barry

“Magnetism is one of the Six Fundamental Forces of the Universe, with the other five being Gravity, Duct Tape, Whining, Remote Control, and The Force That Pulls Dogs Toward The Groins Of Strangers.” ~ Dave Barry

“It is a well-documented fact that guys will not ask for directions. This is a biological thing. This is why it takes several million sperm cells . . . to locate a female egg, despite the fact that the egg is, relative to them, the size of Wisconsin.”

“Guys are simple... women are not simple and they always assume that men must be just as complicated as they are, only way more mysterious. The whole point is guys are not thinking much. They are just what they appear to be. Tragically.”

"Scientists now believe that the primary biological function of breasts is to make males stupid.”

“Geographically, Ireland is a medium-sized rural island that is slowly but steadily being consumed by sheep.”