W. H. Auden Quotes

Men may know many things by seeing; but no prophet can see before the event, nor what end waits for him.

I will sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me.

Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know.

Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

The difference between hearsay and prophecy is often one of sequence. Hearsay often turns out to have been prophecy.

History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy.

Certain signs are the forerunners of certain events.

The past has revealed to me the structure of the future.

Every dream is a prophecy: every jest is an earnest in the womb of Time.

Who heeds not the future will find sorrow at hand

Mmm....she's doomed! You're doomed!! They're all doomed! Notice I didn't specify what kind of doom, so no matter what happens, I predicted it. How very WISE of me.

My life is passed in making bad jokes and seeing them turn into true prophecies.

Well. There was noting to be done for it. Things had happened as they did, time's arrow had yet to be reversed by humans, done was done. If a man spent his life looking over his shoulder at every possible branching of his path he could have taken, he would never accomplish anything. One must learn from history so as not to repeat it, but one must not waste one's energy or time worrying about what might have been. Sorry . . . but people die every day and the galaxy continues on quite well without them. Consider yourself lucky you are one of those as yet unselected by the Fates.

The art of prophecy is very difficult, especially with respect to the future.

The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable.

Marethyu stretched out his right hand and Aten took it in his. "Let me tell you this," the hook-handed man said. "We will meet again,you and I,in a different place and a different time." "You know this to be true?" "I do." "Because you have seen the future?" "Because I have been there.

We can be almost certain of being wrong about the future, if we are wrong about the past.

I agree with the realistic Irishman who said he preferred to prophesy after the event.

Oh what idiots we have all been, this is just as it must be

Very early in my life it was too late.

We often regret we did not do otherwise, when that very otherwise would, in all probability, have done for us.

Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it.

He knew the things that were and the things that would be and the things that had been before.