W. H. Auden Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.

  W. H. Auden

  Dog, Joy, Tails

  39 Copy quote

• All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation.

  W. H. Auden

  Addiction, Damnation, Sin

  A Certain World (1970) "Hell"

  93 Copy quote

• Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.

  W. H. Auden

  Men, Choices, Attention

  13 Copy quote

• If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me.

  W. H. Auden

  Love, Heart, Affection

  W. H. Auden, Katherine Bucknell (2003). “Juvenilia: Poems, 1922-1928”, p.41, Princeton University Press

  11 Copy quote

• Christ did not enchant men; He demanded that they believe in Him: except on one occasion, the Transfiguration. For a brief while, Peter, James, and John were permitted to see Him in His glory. For that brief while they had no need of faith. The vision vanished, and the memory of it did not prevent them from all forsaking Him when He was arrested, or Peter from denying that he had ever known Him.

  W. H. Auden

  Memories, Believe, Men

  31 Copy quote

• Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.

  W. H. Auden

  Book, Thank God, Alternatives

  10 Copy quote

• Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.

  W. H. Auden

  Writing, Intelligent, Doe

  11 Copy quote

• It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly.

  W. H. Auden

  Suffering, Criticism, Ugly

  22 Copy quote

• I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky.

  W. H. Auden

  Love, Stars, Ocean

  Another Time (1940) "As I Walked Out One Evening"

  39 Copy quote

• To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself.

  W. H. Auden

  Attention, Pay, Praying

  8 Copy quote

• A poet's hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.

  W. H. Auden

  Hope, Food, Cooking

  Collected Poems (1976) p. 639

  10 Copy quote

• Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate.

  W. H. Auden

  Marriage, Interesting, Romance

  31 Copy quote

• People always get what they want. But there is a price for everything. Failures are either those who do not know what they want or are not prepared to pay the price asked them. The price varies from individual to individual. Some get things at bargain-sale prices, others only at famine prices. But it is no use grumbling. Whatever price you are asked, you must pay.

  W. H. Auden

  Pay The Price, People, Grumbling

  23 Copy quote

• I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.

  W. H. Auden

  Thinking, Civilization, Firsts

  16 Copy quote

• We are lived by powers we pretend to understand.

  W. H. Auden

  "Reading between the lines" by Lachlan Mackinnon, www.theguardian.com. September 30, 2001.

  6 Copy quote

• What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Media, Political

  "The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("The Poet & The City"), (p. 83), 1962.

  31 Copy quote

• I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.

  W. H. Auden

  Learning, Israel, Evil

  "September 1, 1939" l. 19 (1939)

  9 Copy quote

• All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our time, is only a letter written to oneself.

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Sick, Letters

  21 Copy quote

• A small grove massacred to the last ash,
  An oak with heart-rot, give away the show:
  This great society is going to smash;
  They cannot fool us with how fast they go,
  How much they cost each other and the gods.
  A culture is no better than its woods.

  W. H. Auden

  Heart, Giving, Environmental

  Shield of Achilles (1955) "Bucolics"

  57 Copy quote

• Now is the age of anxiety.

  W. H. Auden

  Birthday, Anxiety, Age

  10 Copy quote

• A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.

  W. H. Auden

  Music, Art, Thinking

  19 Copy quote

• The definition of prayer is paying careful and concentrated attention to something other than your own constructions.

  W. H. Auden

  Prayer, Attention, Definitions

  19 Copy quote

• Water is the soul of the Earth.

  W. H. Auden

  Water, Soul, Earth

  231 Copy quote

• Weep for the lives your wishes never led.

  W. H. Auden

  Life, Hope, Wish

  6 Copy quote

• Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.

  W. H. Auden

  Sight, Smell, People

  23 Copy quote

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