W. H. Auden Quotes

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, Food, Media

For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
W. H. Auden

Himself, Forgotten, Bear

Art is born of humiliation.
W. H. Auden

Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.
W. H. Auden

Cannot, Return, Perhaps

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
W. H. Auden

Love, Water, Lived

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.
W. H. Auden

May, Him, Often

My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.
W. H. Auden

Rain, Face, Left

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

Human, Games, Innocent

Now is the age of anxiety.
W. H. Auden

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do.
W. H. Auden

Work, Hard, Down

All that we are not stares back at what we are.
W. H. Auden

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

Same, Geniuses, Luckiest

Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.
W. H. Auden

Good, Evil, Cannot

It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too much. I can see myself doing it. In England, one feels all the social restraints holding one back. But here, anything can happen.
W. H. Auden

Happen, America, Here

Learn from your dreams what you lack.
W. H. Auden

Dreams, Learn, Lack

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, Time, Happy

May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that 'faith' is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?
W. H. Auden

Faith, God, History

Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.
W. H. Auden

Music, Made, Invisible

No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.
W. H. Auden

Wish, Alive, Granted

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
W. H. Auden

Aim, Writers, Confuse

The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.
W. H. Auden

Death, Words, Living

You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.
W. H. Auden

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

Write, Poet, Bomb

A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.
W. H. Auden

Poet, Maker, Verbal

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

Music, Art, Poetry

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Biography

Nationality: English

Type: Poet

Born: February 21, 1907

Died: September 29, 1973

Links

Find on Amazon: W. H. Auden

Cite this Page: Citation

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