Quote #79

In all technologically 'advanced' countries, fashion has replaced tradition, so that involuntary membership in a society can no longer provide a feeling of community.

More from Wystan Hugh Auden

  1. Most people are even less original in their dreaming than in their waking life; their dreams are more monotonous than their thoughts and od…
  2. It is, for example, axiomatic that we should all think of ourselves as being more sensitive than other people because, when we are insensit…
  3. Young people, who are still uncertain of their identity, often try on a succession of masks in the hope of finding the one which suits them…
  4. In any modern city, a great deal of our energy has to be expended in not seeing, not hearing, not smelling. An inhabitant of New York who p…
  5. Most people call something profound, not because it is near some important truth but because it is distant from ordinary life. Thus, darkne…
  6. One can only blaspheme if one believes.
  7. In most poetic expressions of patriotism, it is impossible to distinguish what is one of the greatest human virtues from the worst human vi…
  8. The curious delusion that some families are older than others.

All Wystan Hugh Auden quotes