W. H. Auden Quotes About Language

Quotes about: Language

• A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

  W. H. Auden

  Love, Passion, Language Words

  "Poets at Work" by W. H. Auden, (p. 170), 1948.

• In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required.

  W. H. Auden

  Two, Greek, Would Be

• As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.

  W. H. Auden

  Political, Language, Corruption

• Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.

  W. H. Auden

  Mother, Writing, Language

• 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

  Hair, Self, Hands

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

  W. H. Auden

  Thinking, Mystical Experiences, Ego

  "Paris Review", Writers at Work, 4th series, (p. 266), 1972.

• The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born.

  W. H. Auden

  Language, Poet, Born

• Human language is mythological and metaphorical by nature.

  W. H. Auden

  Language, Metaphorical, Humans

• One demands two things of a poem. Firstly, it must be a well-made verbal object that does honor to the language in which it is written. Secondly, it must say something significant about a reality common to us all, but perceived from a unique perspective. What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves.

  W. H. Auden

  Unique, Reality, Two

• Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse.

  W. H. Auden

  Men, Air, Height

  W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.159, DEBOLS!LLO

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