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W. H. Auden Quotes - Page 17

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

In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero.

In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero.

Zero, Winning, Games

Earth, receive an honored guest; William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry.

Art, Lying, Poetry

"In Memory of W. B. Yeats" l. 42 (1940)

What is a Professor of Poetry? How can poetry be professed?

Poetry, Professors, Poetry Is

Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.

Art, Stories, Detectives

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

Car, Assassins, Salad

The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.

Pride, Hands, People

The trees encountered on a country stroll Reveal a lot about that country's soul ... A culture is no better than its woods.

Country, Tree, Soul

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

Skins, Disease, Behind You

If it form the one landscape that we the inconstant ones Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly Because it dissolves in water.

Afterlife, Water, Landscape

W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.257, DEBOLS!LLO

Composing mortals with immortal fire.

Fire, Immortal, Composing

'Three Songs for St Cecilia's Day' (1941)

I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade

Hope, Clever, Fear

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

The camera may do justice to laughter, but must degrade sorrow.

Laughter, Justice, Sorrow

Warm are the still and lucky miles, White shores of longing stretch away, A light of recognition fills The whole great day, and bright The tiny world of lovers' arms. Silence invades the breathing wood Where drowsy limbs a treasure keep, Now greenly falls the learned shade Across the sleeping brows And stirs their secret to a smile. Restored! Returned! The lost are borne On seas of shipwreck home at last: See! In a fire of praising burns The dry dumb past, and we Our life-day long shall part no more.

Fall, Sleep, Home

But he would have us most of all remember to be enthusiastic over the night. Not only for the sense of wonder it alone has to offer but also because it needs our love. For with sad eyes its delectable creatures look up and beg us dumbly to ask them to follow. They are exiles who long for a future that lies in our power.

Dream, Lying, Eye

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

Horse, Gun, Wicked

There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair, Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem From insignificance.

Responsibility, Verbs, Machines

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

Men, Taste, Genuine

"The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("Reading"), (p. 6), 1962.

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

Worry, Fancy, Today

W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.75, DEBOLS!LLO

the child unlucky in his little State, Some hearth where freedom is excluded, A hive whose honey is fear and worry, Feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape

Children, Fear, Worry

W. H. Auden, “In Memory Of Sigmund Freud”

The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again.

Pain, Grief, Suffering

W. H. Auden, “September 1, 1939”

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

Rain, Flower, Fall

'The Witnesses' (1935) l. 67

Long ago the accusations had begun, And suddenly knew by whom it had been judged

Long Ago, Judgment, Accusation

W. H. Auden, “In Memory Of Sigmund Freud”

Like love we don't know where or why Like love we cant compel or fly Like Love we often weep Like Love we seldom keep

Like Love, Knows, Cant

"Law like Love" l. 57 (1939)

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

Wall, Silence, Sides

Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

Hurt, Mad, Ireland

"In Memory of W. B. Yeats" l. 32 (1940)

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