W. H. Auden Quotes - Page 13

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• It's a pity I am so impatient and careless, as any ordinary person could learn all the techniques of photography in a week. It is the democratic art, i.e. technical skill is practically eliminated - the more foolproof cameras become with focusing and exposure gadgets the better - and artistic quality depends only on choice of subject.

  W. H. Auden

  Photography, Art, Skills

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• 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?

  W. H. Auden

  Giving, Singing, Sake

  "The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("Writing"), (p. 27), 1962.

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• Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the horizontal one

  W. H. Auden

  Men, Honor, Horizontal

  'To Christopher Isherwood' (1930)

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• Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

  W. H. Auden

  Dog, Grief, Cutting

  "Funeral Blues" l. 1 (1936)

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• 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

  Dream, Heart, Eye

  W. H. Auden, “Lullaby”

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• 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

  Regret, Hands, Water

  'As I Walked Out One Evening' (1940)

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• Thou shalt not answer questionnaires Or quizzes upon world affairs, Nor with compliance Take any test. Thou shalt not sit with statisticians nor commit A social science.

  W. H. Auden

  Math, Tests, Answers

  W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.219, DEBOLS!LLO

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• Acts of injustice done
  Between the setting and the rising sun
  In history lie like bones, each one.

  W. H. Auden

  Lying, Rising, Done

  "The Ascent of F6: A Tragedy in Two Acts". Play by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, 1936.

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• The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.

  W. H. Auden

  Hero, Pilots, Aces

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• Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same time prevented from ever clashing.

  W. H. Auden

  Mean, Government, Choices

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• Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation.

  W. H. Auden

  Practice, Separation, Theory

  "A Certain World: A Commonplace Book" by W. H. Auden, Viking Press, 1st edition, ("Tyranny"), 1970.

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• There is a great deal of difference in believing something still, and believing it again.

  W. H. Auden

  Believe, Differences, Deals

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• As biological organisms made of matter, we are subject to the laws of physics and biology: as conscious persons who create our own history we are free to decide what that history shall be. Without science, we should have no notion of equality; without art, no notion of liberty.

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Should Have, Law

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• One can only blaspheme if one believes.

  W. H. Auden

  Believe, Ifs

  "Forewords and Afterwords" by W. H. Auden, ("Concerning the Unpredictable"), (p. 472), 1973.

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• Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen to, especially if the shop is not one's own.

  W. H. Auden

  Silly, Interesting, Listening

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• 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

  Jobs, Pride, Men

  "Forewords and Afterwords" by W. H. Auden, ("A Russian Aesthete"), (p. 279), 1973.

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• 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

  Book, Men, Majority

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• To have a sense of sin means to feel guilty at there being an ethical choice to make, a guilt which, however "good" I may become, remains unchanged.

  W. H. Auden

  Mean, Choices, Guilt

  "The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("The Guilty Vicarage"), (p. 157), 1962.

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• 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

  Art, Twenties, Taste

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• A writer is a maker, not a man of action: his private life is of no concern to anybody but himself, his family and his friends.

  W. H. Auden

  Men, Action, Life Is

  "Hail Anon, the best writer ever" by Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. January 13, 2008.

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• Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.

  W. H. Auden

  Writing, Proud, Fame

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• 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

  Men, America, Special

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• Dance, dance, dance till you drop.

  W. H. Auden

  Dance, Ballet Class, Dancing

  'Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.' (1937).

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• God bless the USA, so large, so friendly, and so rich.

  W. H. Auden

  God, Usa, America

  W. H. Auden, “On The Circuit”

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• 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

  Guilt, Wealth, Drink

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