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W. H. Auden Quotes

All Quotes Acting Affection Age Art Character Children Choices Cooking Country Criticism Culture Dance Dancing Death Desire Drama Earth Ego Evil Fate Fear Feelings Food Funeral Funny Giving God Greek Grief Happiness Healing Heart Hell Helping Others History Homosexuality Honor Hope Hunger Imagination Inspirational Joy Judgment Language Life Listening Love Lying Mankind Money Mountain Mourning Music Nature Passion Past Pleasure Poetry Politics Prayer Quality Reality Religion Running Science Silence Sin Sleep Sorrow Soul Study Success Suffering Time Today Torture Waiting Water Winning Work Writing

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

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

Respect, Civilization, Diversity

Life is a picnic on a precipice.

Picnics, Life Is, Precipice

We are lived by powers we pretend to understand.

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

But once in a while the odd thing happens Once in a while the dream comes true And the whole pattern of life is altered Once in a while, the moon turns blue

Dream, Moon, Blue

We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.

Change, Religion, Growth

Wystan Hugh Auden (2011). “The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue”, p.105, Princeton University Press

Nobody is ever sent to Hell: he or she insists on going there.

Hell

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

Truth, Important, Want

We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know.

Inspirational, Funny, Helping Others

W H Auden (1981). “Antæus”, Ecco Press

Those who hate to go to bed fear death; those who hate to get up fear life.

Hate, Bed, Get Up

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.

Writing, Intelligent, Doe

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

Inspirational, Leadership, Joy

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

Attention, Pay, Praying

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

Real, Book, Reading

Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.

Evil, Politics, Imagine

"A Certain World". Book by W. H. Auden, 1970.

If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then the best lives for the writer to observe are those in which the role of natural necessity is clearest, namely, the lives of the very poor.

Art, Book, Men

There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye.

Eye, Stories, More Than Meets The Eye

W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.86, DEBOLS!LLO

The lights must never go out, The music must always play

Light, Play

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

All that we are not stares back at what we are.

Crazy, Mad, Staring

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.

Love, Inspirational, Life

Dyer's Hand (1963) "Notes on the Comic"

A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it.

Artist, Craftsman, Results

"Forewords and Afterwords" by W. H. Auden, ("A Poet of the Actual"), (p. 265), 1973.

Money cannot buy the fuel of love but is excellent kindling.

Love, Fuel, Excellent

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.

Love, Motivational, Strength

W. H. Auden, Katherine Bucknell (2003). “Juvenilia: Poems, 1922-1928”, p.105, Princeton University Press

My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored; people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.

People, Feelings, Politics

W H Auden (1981). “Antæus”, Ecco Press

Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

Music, Art, Philosophy

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

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

Mother, Writing, Language

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