W. H. Auden Quotes about Suffering

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

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

W. H. Auden

Suffering, Criticism, Ugly

The truly tragic kind of suffering is the kind produced and defiantly insisted upon by the hero himself so that, instead of making him better, it makes him worse and when he dies he is not reconciled to the law but defiant, that is, damned. Lear is not a tragic hero, Othello is.

W. H. Auden

Hero, Law, Suffering

"Forewords and Afterwords" by W. H. Auden, ("The Greeks and Us"), (p. 21), 1973.

About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; How well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.

W. H. Auden

Suffering, Sorrow, Window

"Musee des Beaux Arts" l. 1 (1940)

Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.

W. H. Auden

Writing, Interesting, Suffering

Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master's commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too personal style.

W. H. Auden

Thinking, Style, Suffering