W. H. Auden Quotes - Page 4

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Cats can be very funny, and have the oddest ways of showing they're glad to see you.

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.

The stars are not wanted now, put out every one Pack up the moon & dismantle the sun.

Cathedrals, luxury liners laden with souls, Holding to the east their hulls of stone.

Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good.

Private faces in public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces in private places.

Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind.

The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.

I know nothing, except what everyone knows - if there when Grace dances, I should dance.

There was still gold and silver in the mountains, And hunger was a more immediate sorrow

Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.

No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called Games.

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

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

No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.

'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'

Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.

To save your world you asked this man to die; would this man, could he see you now, ask why?

Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won't believe again in their own size.

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

The sky is darkening like a stain Something is going to fall like rain And it won't be flowers

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

There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.

No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.

The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience.

The most important truths are likely to be those which society at that time least wants to hear.

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

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

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

If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.

You must go to bed with friends or whores, where money makes up the difference in beauty or desire.

In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or today.

There are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children.

We till shadowed days are done, We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock

What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one's gifts?

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

Oh, how I wish that Orwell were still alive, so that I could read his comments on contemporary events!

Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.

The parlour cars and Pullmans are packed also with scented assassins, salad-eaters who murder on milk.

Though one cannot always Remember exactly why one has been happy, There is no forgetting that one was.

All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall, And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all.

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

Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.

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

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

Caesar's double-bed is warm As an unimportant clerk Writes i do not like my work On a pink official form.

A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.

Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods.

Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were.

A poem is a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motorcycle.

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