A Quote by W. H. Auden

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.
where are the gods the gods hate us the gods have run away the gods have hidden in holes the gods are dead of the plague they rot and stink too there never were any gods there’s only death
Storytelling is how we survive, when there's no feed, the story feeds something, it feeds the spirit, the imagination. I can't imagine life without stories, stories from my parents, my culture. Stories from other people's parents, their culture. That's how we learn from each other, it's the best way. That's why literature is so important, it connects us heart to heart.
Once you follow a path of nonviolence and social justice, it won't take you long before you come into conflict with the culture, with the society. You can't know what is at stake or how much it is going to cost you until you get in the game. That's the only way, and the level of cost is equal to the level of involvement.
We need to move into a culture of peace. What I hope to promote is the idea that we all need each other and that the greatest happiness in life is not how much we have but how much we give. That's a wealth that's priceless. You can't buy compassion.
How I wish we could all see the cost of our choices as clearly as a price tag on items in a store. If I know how much something is going to cost me, I make much wiser choices. But we have an enemy who schemes against us to keep the cost of dumb decisions concealed until it's too late.
That's part of the reason why we also need to focus on, how do I give to society, how do I participate in society, how do I make society a better place, because, by the way, it's good for me, but it's also good for all of us in the environment in which we live and work.
How much more can you give? Other than, literally, open-heart surgery onstage? Not much. But the only cure you have right now is the honesty of going, this is who you are. I know who I am.
Our own economy tells us to take as much as we can get, right? Our own economy says, you're going to be the most successful graduate if you go into the business world and take as much you can get. That's not how nature works. Nature has a much simpler economy. Everything in nature takes what it needs. That's it. You don't see an oak tree gathering up all the resources. An oak tree takes what it needs to be the authentic oak tree it is.
I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.
People need to understand. If they go to a show on Broadway and find seventy people working but only fifty spectators, how much would the ticket cost? That's what El Bulli's about. There are seventy actors who are playing for just fifty spectators. Is the price expensive? It's relative. How much does a normal dinner at a five-star hotel restaurant cost? Four hundred dollars. It's the same as El Bulli. But you can also think of it this way: How much would it cost to eat something that nobody else is eating?
How much is enough? How much does anyone require? Can I be both kind and tough? Can I put faith before desire? Right now, for all time, I vow to try . . . I volunteer to be simple, I volunteer to love, Every living thing like a mountain stream that flows out o'er the land. I volunteer for the journey from here to heaven's gate. I will do my part I place my heart in Your gracious hands . . . How then shall we live? Let us live lightly as a feather. How much shall we give? Let us give everything, together One heart, one mind, all humankind... I volunteer.
I always knew that I could go deep. How deep? I don't know. But it always seems that with each character I take on, I'm challenged to go deeper than the last time, and then again deeper than the last time. This is the deepest I've ever been asked to dive. And to see how deep I actually went for this, and that I wasn't afraid to go there in order to give Tyler exactly what he envisioned for the character, which was pretty deep, that's what I discovered about myself.
Hindsight is an exact science. Hold fast to your dreams, for it dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
How many things would be different in everyone’s surroundings if we hadn’t lived? How a good word many have encouraged some fellow and did something to him that he did it differently and better than he would otherwise. And through him somebody else was saved. How much we contribute to each other, how powerful we each are-and don’t know it.
Nothing can cost you someone you love. The only thing that can cost you your husband is if you believe a thought. That's how you move away from him. That's how the marriage ends. You are one with your husband until you believe the thought that he should look a certain way, he should give you something, he should be something other than what he is. That's how you divorce him. Right then and there you have lost your marriage.
How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos.
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