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W. H. Auden
247 quotes
“Private faces in public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces in private places.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Orators (1932) dedication
“I'm beginning to lose patience With my personal relations: They are not deep, And they are not cheap.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Shorts" (c. 1932) no. 6. Collected Shorter Poems, 1927–1957 (1966) pt. 1
“The sky is darkening like a stain, Something is going to fall like rain And it won't be flowers.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Witnesses", III, in The Listener, vol. 10, no. 259 (12 July 1933) p. 1,010
“Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read The Hunter's waking thoughts.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935) act II, sc. 2, chorus
“I see it often since you’ve been away: The island, the veranda, and the fruit; The tiny steamer breaking from the bay; The literary mornings with its hoot; Our ugly comic servant; and then you, Lovely and willing every afternoon.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sonnets", I, in New Verse, no. 5 (October 1933) p. 15
“At the far end of the enormous room An orchestra is playing to the rich.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sonnets", I, in New Verse, no. 5 (October 1933) p. 15
“This is the Night Mail crossing the Border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order,Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, The shop at the corner, the girl next door.Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb: The gradient's against her, but she’s on time.Past cotton-grass and moorland border, Shovelling white steam over her shoulder.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Night Mail (1936)
“Letters of thanks, letters from banks, Letters of joy from girl and boy, Receipted bills and invitations To inspect new stock or to visit relations, And applications for situations, And timid lovers' declarations, And gossip, gossip from all the nations.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Night Mail (1936)
“Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Ascent of F6 (1936) act II, sc. 5
“Every day America's destroyed and re-created, America is what you do, America is I and you, America is what you choose to make it.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Paul Bunyan (5 May 1941) act II, sc. 2
“In a garden shady this holy lady With reverent cadence and subtle psalm, Like a black swan as death came on Poured forth her song in perfect calm: And by ocean’s margin this innocent virgin Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer, And notes tremendous from her great engine Thundered out on the Roman air.Blonde Aphrodite rose up excited, Moved to delight by the melody, White as an orchid she rode quite naked In an oyster shell on top of the sea.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Three Songs for St. Cecilia's Day", no. 1, in Harper's Bazaar (December 1941). Revised in Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (1950) p. 233
“Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions To all musicians, appear and inspire: Translated Daughter, come down and startle Composing mortals with immortal fire.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O stern proconsul of intractable provinces, O poet of the difficult, dear addicted artist.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At the Grave of Henry James", st. 5. Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (1950) pt. 1
“The actual self Round whom time revolves so fast Is so afraid of what its motions might possibly do That the actor is never there when his really important Acts happen.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 To the vanity of our calling: make intercession For the treason of all clerks.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Squares and Oblongs", in Poets at Work (1948) p. 170
“The masculine imagination lives in a state of perpetual revolt against the limitations of human life. In theological terms, one might say that all men, left to themselves, become gnostics. They may swagger like peacocks, but in their heart of hearts they all think sex an indignity and wish they could beget themselves on themselves. Hence the aggressive hostility toward women so manifest in most club-car stories.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Foreword to Phyllis McGinley's Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades (1960) p. xi
“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 (1907–1973) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Foreword to Phyllis McGinley's Times Three (1960) p. xi
“Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Foreword to The Viking Book of Aphorisms (1962) p. v
“Though the great artists of the past could not change the course of history, it is only through their work that we are able to break bread with the dead, and without communion with the dead a fully human life is impossible.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Words and the Word". Secondary Worlds (1968) p. 141
“Only in rites can we renounce our oddities and be truly entired.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Archaeology", st. 18. Thank You, Fog (1974) p. 16
“Let us honor if we can The vertical man Though we value none But the horizontal one.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Put the car away; when life fails What's the good of going to Wales? Here am I, here are you: But what does it mean? What are we going to do?”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we really want to live, we’d better start at once to try; If we don’t it doesn’t matter, but we’d better start to die.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To ask the hard question is simple, The simple act of the confused will.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sir, no man's enemy, forgiving all But will his negative inversion, be prodigal: Send to us power and light, a sovereign touch Curing the intolerable neural itch, The exhaustion of weaning, the liar's quinsy, And the distortions of ingrown virginity.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And make us as Newton was, who in his garden watching The apple falling towards England, became aware Between himself and her of an eternal tie.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Out on the lawn I lie in bed, Vega conspicuous overhead.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let the florid music praise, The flute and the trumpet, Beauty’s conquest of your face: In that land of flesh and bone, Where from citadels on high Her imperial standards fly, Let the hot sun Shine on, shine on.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Look, stranger, on this island now The leaping light for your delight discovers, Stand stable here And silent be, That through the channels of the ear May wander like a river The swaying sound of the sea.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O what is that sound which so thrills the ear Down in the valley drumming, drumming? Only the scarlet soldiers, dear, The soldiers coming.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O it's broken the lock and splintered the door, O it's the gate where they're turning, turning; Their boots are heavy on the floor And their eyes are burning.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last; Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cold, impossible, ahead Lifts the mountain's lovely head Whose white waterfall could bless Travellers in their last distress.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A shilling life will give you all the facts.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A host of columbines and pathics Who show the poor by mathematics In their defence That wealth and poverty are merely Mental pictures, so that clearly Every tramp’s a landlord really In mind-events.Let fever sweat them till they tremble Cramp rack their limbs till they resemble Cartoons by Goya: Their daughters sterile be in rut, May cancer rot their herring gut, The circular madness on them shut, Or paranoia.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cathedrals, Luxury liners laden with souls, Holding to the east their hulls of stone.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The poet reciting to Lady Diana While the footmen whisper ‘Have a banana’, The judge enforcing the obsolete law, The banker making the loan for the war,The expert designing the long-range gun To exterminate everyone under the sun, Would like to get out but could only mutter;— ‘What can I do? It’s my bread and butter.’”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Underneath the abject willow, Lover, sulk no more; Act from thought should quickly follow: What is thinking for? Your unique and moping station Proves you cold; Stand up and fold Your map of desolation.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fish in the unruffled lakes Their swarming colours wear, Swans in the winter air A white perfection have, And the great lion walks Through his innocent grove; Lion, fish and swan Act, and are gone Upon Time's toppling wave.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must lose our loves, On each beast and bird that moves Turn an envious look.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And the poor in their fireless lodgings, dropping the sheets Of the evening paper: "Our day is our loss, O show us History the operator, the Organiser, Time the refreshing river." And the nations combine each cry, invoking the life That shapes the individual belly and orders The private nocturnal terror: "Did you not found the city state of the sponge, "Raise the vast military empires of the shark And the tiger, establish the robin's plucky canton? Intervene, O descend as a dove or A furious papa or a mild engineer, but descend.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On that arid square, that fragment nipped off from hot Africa, soldered so crudely to inventive Europe; On that tableland scored by rivers, Our thoughts have bodies; the menacing shapes of our feverAre precise and alive. For the fears which made us respond To the medicine ad and the brochure of winter cruises Have become invading battalions; And our faces, the institute-face, the chain-store, the ruinAre projecting their greed as the firing squad and the bomb. Madrid is the heart. Our moments of tenderness blossom As the ambulance and the sandbag; Our hours of friendship into a people's army.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To-morrow the rediscovery of romantic love, The photographing of ravens; all the fun under Liberty's masterful shadow; To-morrow the hour of the pageant-master and the musician, The beautiful roar of the chorus under the dome; To-morrow the exchanging of tips on the breeding of terriers, The eager election of chairmen By the sudden forest of hands. But to-day the struggle.To-morrow for the young the poets exploding like bombs, The walks by the lake, the weeks of perfect communion; To-morrow the bicycle races Through the suburbs on summer evenings. But to-day the struggle.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My head looks like an egg upon a plate, My nose is not too bad, but isn’t straight; I have no proper eyebrows, and my eyes Are far too close together to look nice.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The greater the love, the more false to its object Not to be born is the best for man After the kiss comes the impulse to throttle Break the embraces, dance while you can.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order The dance’s pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy The tune is catching and will not stop Dance till the stars come down with the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source