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himself in a letter to Tom Attlee, 8 April 1956
    Kenneth Harris Attlee (1982)
    [Attlee]

3 [Russian Communism is] the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great.
    speech at Aarhus University, 11 April 1956
    [Attlee]

4 Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.
    speech at Oxford, 14 June 1957
    [Attlee]
     
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Aubrey, John 1626–97
    1 And when he saw the cheese-cakes:—"What have we here, crinkum crankum ?"
    Brief Lives "Ralph Kettel"

2 Oval face. His eye a dark grey. He had auburn hair. His complexion exceeding fair—he was so fair that they called him the lady of Christ's College.
    Brief Lives "John Milton"
    [Aubrey]

3 He pronounced the letter R ( littera canina ) very hard—a certain sign of a satirical wit.
    Brief Lives "John Milton"
    [Aubrey]

4 Sciatica: he cured it, by boiling his buttock.
    Brief Lives "Sir Jonas Moore"
    [Aubrey]

5 Anno 1670, not far from Cirencester, was an apparition; being demanded whether a good spirit or a bad? returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume and most melodious twang. Mr W. Lilly believes it was a fairy.
    Miscellanies (1696) "Apparitions"
    [Aubrey]
     
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Auctoritates Aristotelis
    1 Habit is second nature.

2 You cannot argue with someone who denies the first principles.
    [Auctoritates Aristotelis]

3 God and nature do nothing in vain.
    [Auctoritates Aristotelis]

4 All men naturally desire to know.
    [Auctoritates Aristotelis]

5 Parents love their children more than children love their parents.
    [Auctoritates Aristotelis]

6 Time is the measure of movement.
    [Auctoritates Aristotelis]
     
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Auden, W. H. 1907–73
    1
I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
    "As I Walked Out One Evening" (1940)

2
The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the teacup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
    "As I Walked Out One Evening" (1940)
    [Auden]

3
Make intercession
For the treason of all clerks.
    "At the Grave of Henry James" (1945).
    [Auden]

4
August for the people and their favourite islands.
    title of poem (1936)
    [Auden]

5
The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews
Not to be born is the best for man.
    "Death's Echo" (1937).
    [Auden]

6
To save your world you asked this man to die:
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
    "Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier" (1955)
    [Auden]

7
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
    "Epitaph on a Tyrant" (1940).
    [Auden]

8
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
    "Funeral Blues" (1936)
    [Auden]

9
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
    "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" (1940) pt. 2
    [Auden]

10
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate.
    "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" (1940) pt. 3
    [Auden]

11
Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.
    "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" (1940) pt. 3
    [Auden]

12
Look, stranger, at this island now.
    title of poem (1936)
    [Auden]

13
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm.
    "Lullaby" (1940)
    [Auden]

14
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters.
    "Musée des Beaux Arts" (1940)
    [Auden]

15
Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the