Source: The Stories of John Cheever
As quoted in a press release by A&M Records (1989) http://www.elrarecords.com/sunra.html
“We are all on earth to help others. What on earth the others are here for, I can't imagine.”
Often cited as by Auden without attribution, this quotation has been traced to John Foster Hall (1867-1945), an English comedian known as the Reverend Vivian Foster, Vicar of Mirth. Full history with sound recording http://audensociety.org/vivianfoster.html
Misattributed
“I think that I am here, on this earth,
To present a report on it, but to whom I don't know.”
"Consciousness," trans. Czesław Miłosz and Robert Hass
Unattainable Earth (1986)
Context: I think that I am here, on this earth,
To present a report on it, but to whom I don't know.
As if I were sent so that whatever takes place
Has meaning because it changes into memory.
“We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I do not know.”
Source: Essays In Criticism By Matthew Arnold
“I can hit it farther on the moon. But actually, my swing is better here on Earth.”
The Orlando Sentinel staff (August 13, 1992) "Lunar-Golfer Shepard Takes Swings In Tourney", The Orlando Sentinel, p. A2.
Deutsche Gottglaube, quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 9
“Here in a little lonely room
I am master of earth and sea,
And the planets come to me.”
The Loom of Dreams, st. 1 (1900).
2010s, Erasing History? Monuments and Memory (January 2016)
60 Minutes interview (2005)
Epitaph he composed for himself a few months before he died, as quoted in Calculusː Multivariable (2006) by Steven G. Krantz and Brian E. Blank. p. 126
Unsourced variant: I used to measure the Heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. The mind belonged to Heaven, the body's shadow lies here.
