“A serious house on serious earth it is, / In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, / Are recognised, and robed as destinies.”

— Philip Larkin, "Church Going", The Less Deceived (1955)

About Philip Larkin

1922 – 1985

English poet, author of "The Whitsun Weddings" and "High Windows".

“Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and having people in them, acting.”

“Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.”

“I never think of poetry or the poetry scene, only separate poems written by individuals.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?”

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.”

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.”

“That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.”

“Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.”