W. H. Auden Quotes & Sayings

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation, And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had everything been wrong, we should certainly have heard. — W. H. Auden

What is a Professor of Poetry? How can poetry be professed? — W. H. Auden

Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession. — W. H. Auden

To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith — W. H. Auden

Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read The hunter's waking thoughts. — W. H. Auden

All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall, And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all. — W. H. Auden

To discover how to be human now is the reason we follow this star. — W. H. Auden

a culture is no better than its woods — W. H. Auden

I write because I love to play with language. — W. H. Auden

O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart. — W. H. Auden

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do. — W. H. Auden

If it really was Queen Elizabeth who demanded to see Falstaff in a comedy, then she showed herself a very perceptive critic. But even in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff has not and could not have found his true home because Shakespeare was only a poet. For that he was to wait nearly two hundred years till Verdi wrote his last opera. Falstaff is not the only case of a character whose true home is the world of music; others are Tristan, Isolde and Don Giovanni. — W. H. Auden

All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him. — W. H. Auden

Recipe for the upbringing of a poet: 'As much neurosis as the child can bear. — W. H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me. Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day. Were all stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime, Though this might take me a little time. — W. H. Auden

That the speech of self-disclosure should be translatable seems to me very odd, but I am convinced that it is. The conclusion that I draw is that the only quality which all human being without exception possess is uniqueness: any characteristic, on the other hand, which one individual can be recognized as having in common with another, like red hair or the English language, implies the existence of other individual qualities which this classification excludes. — W. H. Auden

Marriage is rarely bliss But, surely it would be worse As particles to pelt At thousands of miles per sec About a universe In which a lover's kiss Would either not be felt Or break the loved one's neck. — W. H. Auden

Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one. — W. H. Auden

O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you've missed. — W. H. Auden

Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. — W. H. Auden

We must love one another or die — W. H. Auden

Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; whatfrom the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer. — W. H. Auden

The eye likes novelty, but the ear craves familiarity. — W. H. Auden

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
the one, in fact, which is not a mask. — W. H. Auden

We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know. — W. H. Auden

Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be. — W. H. Auden

Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup. — W. H. Auden

When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,' he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu. — W. H. Auden

As writing is one of the desperate professions, it has universal appeal, especially for those not engaged in it. — W. H. Auden

The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died. — W. H. Auden

A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects. — W. H. Auden

August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier. — W. H. Auden

Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist. — W. H. Auden

A poor American feels guilty at being poor, but less guilty than an American rentier who has inherited wealth but is doing nothingto increase it; what can the latter do but take to drink and psychoanalysis? — W. H. Auden

If we apply the term revolution to what happened in North America between 1776 and 1829, it has a special meaning. Normally, the word describes the process by which man transforms himself from one kind of man, living in one kind of society, with one way of looking at the world, into another kind of man, another society, another conception of life ... The American case is different: it is not a question of the Old Man transforming himself into the New, but of the New Man becoming alive to the fact that he is new, that he has been transformed already without his having realized it. — W. H. Auden

Christ did not enchant men; He demanded that they believe in Him: except on one occasion, the Transfiguration. For a brief while, Peter, James, and John were permitted to see Him in His glory. For that brief while they had no need of faith. The vision vanished, and the memory of it did not prevent them from all forsaking Him when He was arrested, or Peter from denying that he had ever known Him. — W. H. Auden

Few can remember
clearly when innocence came
to a sudden end,
the moment at which we ask
for the first time: Am I loved? — W. H. Auden

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us. — W. H. Auden

Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind. — W. H. Auden

I said earlier that I do not believe an artist's life throws much light upon his works. I do believe, however, that, more often than most people realize, his works may throw light upon his life. An artist with certain imaginative ideas in his head may then involve himself in relationships which are congenial to them. — W. H. Auden

There are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children. — W. H. Auden

Without communication with the dead, a fully human life is not possible. — W. H. Auden

One can only blaspheme if one believes. — W. H. Auden

One cannot say that a major poet writes better poems than a minor; on the contrary the chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor.... To qualify as major, a poet, it seems to me, must satisfy about three and a half of the following five conditions.

1. He must write a lot.
2. His poems must show a wide range in subject matter and treatment.
3. He must exhibit an unmistakable originality of vision and style.
4. He must be a master of verse technique.
5. In the case of all poets we distinguish between their juvenilia and their mature work, but [the major poet's] process of maturing continues until he dies.... — W. H. Auden

Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others. — W. H. Auden

For a desert island, one would choose a good dictionary rather than the greatest literary masterpiece imaginable, for, in relation to its readers, a dictionary is absolutely passive and may legitimately be read in an infinite number of ways. — W. H. Auden

Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth. — W. H. Auden

The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor, simply because major poets write a lot. — W. H. Auden

Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible. — W. H. Auden

Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one. — W. H. Auden

Earth, receive an honored guest; William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry. — W. H. Auden

Money cannot buy the fuel of love but is excellent kindling. — W. H. Auden

Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire; Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire. — W. H. Auden

But round your image
there is no fog, and the Earth
can still astonish. — W. H. Auden

If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then the best lives for the writer to observe are those in which the role of natural necessity is clearest, namely, the lives of the very poor. — W. H. Auden

The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it. — W. H. Auden

Political history is far too criminal to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villians from fiction. — W. H. Auden

The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon. — W. H. Auden

All wdl be judged. Master of nuance and scruple, Pray for me and for all writers living or dead;
Because there are many whose works
Are in better taste than their lives, because there is no end T o the vanity of our c a h g : make intercession
For the treason of all clerks.
Because the darkness is never so distant,
And there is never much time for the arrogant
Spirit to flutter its wings,
Or the broken bone to rejoice, or the cruel to cry,
For Him whose property is always to have mercy, the author
And giver of all good things.

W.H. Auden, "At the Grave of Henry James — W. H. Auden

When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes. — W. H. Auden

A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true. — W. H. Auden

The true men of action in our time, those who transform the world, are not the politicians and statesmen, but the scientists — W. H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade — W. H. Auden

There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye. — W. H. Auden

Nature and Passion are powerful, but they are also full of grief. True happiness would have the calm and order of bourgeois routine without its utilitarian ignobility and boredom. — W. H. Auden

Human "nature" is a nature continually in quest of itself, obliged at every moment to transcend what it was a moment before. — W. H. Auden

No hero is mortal till he dies. — W. H. Auden

The religious definition of truth is not that it is universal but that it is absolute. — W. H. Auden

Encased in talent like a uniform, The rank of every poet is well known; They can amaze us like a thunderstorm, Or die so young, or live for years alone. — W. H. Auden

A person incapable of imaging another world than given to him by his senses would be subhuman, and a person who identifies his imaginary world with the world of sensory fact has become insane. — W. H. Auden

Sincerity is technique. — W. H. Auden

Whoever the searchlights catch,
Whatever the loudspeakers blare,
We are not to despair. — W. H. Auden

To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal. — W. H. Auden

I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language. — W. H. Auden

We were put on this Earth to help others. Why others were put here is
beyond me. — W. H. Auden

Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say — W. H. Auden

Left to itself the masculine imagination has very little appreciation for the here and now; it prefers to dwell on what is absent, on what has been or may be. If men are more punctual than women, it is because they know that, without the external discipline of clock time, they would never get anything done. — W. H. Auden

I may want to sleep with Miss America, but I have no wish to hear her talk about herself and her family. — W. H. Auden

Courses in prosody, rhetoric and comparative philology would be required of all students, and every student would have to select three courses out of courses in mathematics, natural history, geology, meteorology, archaeology, mythology, liturgics, cooking. — W. H. Auden

Out on the lawn I lie in bed, Vega conspicuous overhead. — W. H. Auden

In most poetic expressions of patriotism, it is impossible to distinguish what is one of the greatest human virtues from the worst human vice, collective egotism. — W. H. Auden

History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology. — W. H. Auden

In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a unique perspective on the world, a member of a class of one. — W. H. Auden

Aside from purely technical analysis, nothing can be said about music, except when it is bad; when it is good, one can only listen and be grateful. — W. H. Auden

We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbor because our natural attitude toward the other is one of either indifference or hostility. — W. H. Auden

We have no destiny assigned us:
Nothing is certain but the body; we plan
To better ourselves; the hospitals alone remind us
Of the equality of man. — W. H. Auden

When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.

from an essay for Writers by Nancy Crampton — W. H. Auden

The most important truths are likely to be those which society at that time least wants to hear. — W. H. Auden

Words have no word for words that are not true. — W. H. Auden

The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen. — W. H. Auden

A.E.Housman'

No one, not even Cambridge was to blame
(Blame if you like the human situation):
Heart-injured in North London, he became
The Latin Scholar of his generation.

Deliberately he chose the dry-as-dust,
Kept tears like dirty postcards in a drawer;
Food was his public love, his private lust
Something to do with violence and the poor.

In savage foot-notes on unjust editions
He timidly attacked the life he led,
And put the money of his feelings on

The uncritical relations of the dead,
Where only geographical divisions
Parted the coarse hanged soldier from the don. — W. H. Auden

Without art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without science, we should always worship false gods. — W. H. Auden

An honest self-portrait is extremely rare because a man who has reached the degree of self-consciousness presupposed by the desire to paint his own portrait has almost always also developed an ego-consciousness which paints himself painting himself, and introduces artificial highlights and dramatic shadows. — W. H. Auden

Cathedrals, luxury liners laden with souls, Holding to the east their hulls of stone. — W. H. Auden

The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience. — W. H. Auden

Private faces in public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces in private places. — W. H. Auden

Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough; Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love. — W. H. Auden

We are lived by powers we pretend to understand. — W. H. Auden

The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind. — W. H. Auden

Does God judge us by appearances? I Suspect that He does. — W. H. Auden