W. H. Auden Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The eye likes novelty, but the ear craves familiarity.

  W. H. Auden

  Eye, Ears, Likes

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Finding The One, People, Trying

  "Forewords and Afterwords" by W. H. Auden, ("One of the Family"), (p. 369), 1973.

  60 Copy quote

• You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.

  W. H. Auden

  Heart, Crooked, Neighbour

  W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.76, DEBOLS!LLO

  47 Copy quote

• 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

  24 Copy quote

• We do not change as we grow up. The difference between the child and the adult is that the former doesn't know who he is and the latter does.

  W. H. Auden

  Children, Growing Up, Learning

  28 Copy quote

• Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.

  W. H. Auden

  Unique, Men, Mirrors

  28 Copy quote

• Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.

  W. H. Auden

  Reason

  37 Copy quote

• Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say

  W. H. Auden

  People, Negative, Bad People

  51 Copy quote

• Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.

  W. H. Auden

  Inspirational, Genius, Want

  In Dag Hammarskj"ld Markings (1964) foreword

  39 Copy quote

• Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

  W. H. Auden

  Music, Art, Philosophy

  Quoted in Robert Craft Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship (1972).

  48 Copy quote

• You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.

  W. H. Auden

  Stewardship

  28 Copy quote

• Laziness acknowledges the relation of the present to the past but ignores its relation to the future; impatience acknowledge its relation to the future but ignores its relation to the past; neither the lazy nor the impatient man, that is, accepts the present instant in its full reality and so cannot love his neighbour completely.

  W. H. Auden

  Past, Reality, Men

  7 Copy quote

• The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind.

  W. H. Auden

  Inspirational, Mind, Unconscious

  68 Copy quote

• In the deserts of the heart
  Let the healing fountain start.

  W. H. Auden

  Healing, Heart, Relaxation

  Another Time (1940) "In Memory of W. B. Yeats"

  26 Copy quote

• God may reduce you on Judgment Day to tears of shame, reciting by heart the poems you would have written, had your life been good.

  W. H. Auden

  Heart, Tears, May

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  24 Copy quote

• To be happy means to be free, not from pain or fear, but from care or anxiety.

  W. H. Auden

  Pain, Mean, Anxiety

  15 Copy quote

• Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs.

  W. H. Auden

  Dream, Looks, Poet

  4 Copy quote

• The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us. I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient. I hope not. I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive.

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Thinking, Poetry

  10 Copy quote

• Adjectives are the potbelly of poetry.

  W. H. Auden

  Poetry, Adjectives

  7 Copy quote

• See without looking, hear without listening, breathe without asking.

  W. H. Auden

  Philosophical, Listening, Asking

  W. H. Auden (2013). “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio”, p.23, Princeton University Press

  10 Copy quote

• Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.

  W. H. Auden

  Ambition, Intelligent, Men

  "The Good Order" by David Brooks, www.nytimes.com. September 25, 2014.

  13 Copy quote

• I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.

  W. H. Auden

  Blood, Smell, Eras

  11 Copy quote

• The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.

  W. H. Auden

  Music, Beautiful, Simple

  21 Copy quote

• Let all your thinks be thanks.

  W. H. Auden

  Thinking, Thanks

  23 Copy quote

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