Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
Interpretation
Death is often an unnoticed and overlooked aspect of life, much like distant thunder during a joyful picnic.
In this quote, W. H. Auden uses the metaphor of distant thunder to illustrate the idea that death, while a significant and inevitable part of life, often goes unacknowledged during our moments of joy and celebration. Just as the sound of thunder can be a subtle reminder of an approaching storm, death is a lurking presence that we might be aware of but choose to ignore in the midst of our everyday happiness.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the importance of appreciating life during difficult times.
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.'
Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.
One of the hardest challenges posed by the modern world is how to deal with abundance. It's even harder to confront because admitting that it's a problem seems spoiled.
I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities.
People are usually more firmly convinced that their opinions are precious than that they are true.
Politics is the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its opposite halves - sometimes split into quarters - which grind on each other. Not only individuals but states have thus a confirmed dyspepsia.
Science only answers the question, How does it work? Or at most, What's there? Science asks what and how, philosophy asks why, myth and religion ask who. Who's in charge here? Who's the author? That's what we really long to know.
And when suddenly the god stopped her and, with anguish in his cry, uttered the words: βHe has turned roundβ β she comprehended nothing and said softly: βWho?
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