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W. H. Auden

247 quotes

“Sir Rider Haggard Was completely staggered When his bride-to-be Announced, "I AM SHE!”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thomas the Rhymer Was probably a social climber: He should have known Fairy Queens Were beyond his means.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's natural the Boys should whoop it up for so huge a phallic triumph, an adventure it would not have occurred to women to think worth while, made possible onlybecause we like huddling in gangs and knowing the exact time.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Moon Landing", sts. 1–2 (1969)
“A grand gesture. But what does it period? What does it osse? We were always adroiter with objects than lives, and more facile at courage than kindness: from the momentthe first flint was flaked this landing was merely a matter of time. But our selves, like Adam's, still don't fit us exactly, modern only in this—our lack of decorum.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A poet's hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Healing," Papa would tell me, "is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing Nature.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Normally, when one passes someone on the street who is in pain, one either tries to help him, or one simply looks the other way. With a photo there's no human decision; you're not there; you can't turn away; you simply gape. It's a form of voyeurism.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's frightfully important for a writer to be his age, not to be younger or older than he is. One might ask, "What should I write at the age of sixty-four," but never, "What should I write in 1940.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I never write when I'm drunk. Why should one need aids? The Muse is a high-spirited girl who doesn't like to be brutally or coarsely wooed. And she doesn't like slavish devotion — then she lies.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From The Portable Greek Reader (1948)
“The truly tragic kind of suffering is the kind produced and defiantly insisted upon by the hero himself so that, instead of making him better, it makes him worse and when he dies he is not reconciled to the law but defiant, that is, damned. Lear is not a tragic hero, Othello is.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The mystics themselves do not seem to have believed their physical and mental sufferings to be a sign of grace, but it is unfortunate that it is precisely physical manifestations which appeal most to the religiosity of the mob. A woman might spend twenty years nursing lepers without having any notice taken of her, but let her once exhibit the stigmata or live for long periods on nothing but the Host and water, and in no time the crowd will be clamoring for her beatification.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the late Middle Ages there were, no doubt, many persons in monasteries and convents who had no business there and should have been out in the world earning an honest living, but today it may very well be that there are many persons trying to earn a living in the world and driven by failure into mental homes whose true home would be the cloister.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He suffers from one great literary defect, which is often found in lonely geniuses: he never knows when to stop. Lonely people are apt to fall in love with the sound of their own voice, as Narcissus fell in love with his reflection, not out of conceit but out of despair of finding another who will listen and respond.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it. But it is unbecoming in an artist to talk about inspiration; that is the reader's business.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity. Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money. Compared with him even Balzac is a romantic.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Machines have no political opinions, but they have profound political effects. They demand a strict regimentation of time, and, by abolishing the need for manual skill, have transformed the majority of the population from workers into laborers. There are, that is to say, fewer and fewer jobs which a man can find a pride and satisfaction in doing well, more and more which have no interest in themselves and can be valued only for the money they provide.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.The virtue of patriotism has been extolled most loudly and publicly by nations that are in the process of conquering others, by the Roman, for example, in the first century B.C., the French in the 1790s, the English in the nineteenth century, and the Germans in the first half of the twentieth. To such people, love of one's country involves denying the right of others, of the Gauls, the Italians, the Indians, the Poles, to love theirs.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most people call something profound, not because it is near some important truth but because it is distant from ordinary life. Thus, darkness is profound to the eye, silence to the ear; what-is-not is the profundity of what-is.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most people are even less original in their dreaming than in their waking life; their dreams are more monotonous than their thoughts and oddly enough, more literary.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In all technologically "advanced" countries, fashion has replaced tradition, so that involuntary membership in a society can no longer provide a feeling of community.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is...axiomatic that we should all think of ourselves as being more sensitive than other people because, when we are insensitive in our dealings with others, we cannot be aware of it at the time: conscious insensitivity is a self-contradiction.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings (1964)
“In any modern city, a great deal of our energy has to be expended in not seeing, not hearing, not smelling. An inhabitant of New York who possessed the sensory acuteness of an African Bushman would very soon go mad.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One can only blaspheme if one believes.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Murder is commoner among cooks than among the members of any other profession.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 16 November 1946
“It's impossible to represent a saint. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, in the position of having almost infinitely free will.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 16 November 1946
“Criticism should be a casual conversation.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 16 November 1946
“It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too much. I can see myself doing it. In England, one feels all the social restraints holding one back. But here, anything can happen.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 16 November 1946
“Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he'll escape.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 15 January 1947
“There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, "Did you get an erection?" If the answer is "Yes" from a majority of the twelve, then the book is pornographic.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 17 March 1947
“You have to see the sex act comically, as a child.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 17 March 1947
“Sexual fidelity is more important in a homosexual relationship than in any other. In other relationships there are a variety of ties. But here, fidelity is the only bond.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 20 October 1947
“The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 31 December 1947
“What people don't realize is that intimacy has its conventions as well as ordinary social intercourse. There are three cardinal rules — don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a drink without being asked and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 31 December 1947
“You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 16 March 1948
“Reason will be replaced by Revelation. Instead of Rational Law, objective truths perceptible to any who will undergo the necessary intellectual discipline, Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions...Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of schoolchildren ranked above the greatest masterpieces. Idealism will be replaced by Materialism. Life after death will be an eternal dinner party where all the guests are 20 years old...Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish...The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Age, when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: "For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages," what just reason could he give for refusing? But nobody says this. The self-appointed unqualified nurse says: "You are to sing the patient a song which will make him believe that I, and I alone, can cure him. If you can't or won't, I shall confiscate your passport and send you to the mines." And the poor patient in his delirium cries: "Please sing me a song which will give me sweet dreams instead of nightmares. If you succeed, I will give you a penthouse in New York or a ranch in Arizona.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man...always acts either self-loving, just for the hell of it, or God-loving, just for the heaven of it; his reasons, his appetites are secondary motivations. Man chooses either life or death, but he chooses; everything he does, from going to the toilet to mathematical speculation, is an act of religious worship, either of God or of himself. Lastly by the classical apotheosis of Man-God, Augustine opposes the Christian belief in Jesus Christ, the God-Man. The former is a Hercules who compels recognition by the great deeds he does in establishing for the common people in the law, order and prosperity they cannot establish for themselves, by his manifestation of superior power; the latter reveals to fallen man that God is love by suffering, i.e. by refusing to compel recognition, choosing instead to be a victim of man's self-love. The idea of a sacrificial victim is not new; but that it should be the victim who chooses to be sacrificed, and the sacrificers who deny that any sacrifice has been made, is very new.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source