W. H. Auden Quotes - Page 10

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

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Science, Technology

  "The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("The Virgin & The Dynamo"), (p. 62), 1962.

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• Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.

  W. H. Auden

  Travel, Artist, Difficult

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• Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.

  W. H. Auden

  Forgiveness, Party, Unique

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• Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate.

  W. H. Auden

  Iceland, People, Passionate

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• Most people call something profound, not because it is near some important truth but because it is distant from ordinary life. Thus, darkness is profound to the eye, silence to the ear; what-is-not is the profundity of what-is.

  W. H. Auden

  Eye, Profound, People

  "Forewords and Afterwords" by W. H. Auden, ("Un Homme d'Esprit"), (p. 361), 1973.

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

  W. H. Auden

  Dancing, Grace, Should

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• 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)

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• There are three cardinal rules - don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a drink without being asked, and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.

  W. H. Auden

  Matter, Three, Funny Business

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• To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.

  W. H. Auden

  Fairy Tale, Tales, Hunts

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• It is nonsense to speak of 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures. To a hungry man it is, rightly, more important that he eat than that he philosophize.

  W. H. Auden

  Happiness, Men, Important

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• Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life

  W. H. Auden

  Running, Dog, Goes On

  "Musee des Beaux Arts" l. 10 (1940)

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• All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie, the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man-in-the-street and the lie of Authority whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State and no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice to the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.

  W. H. Auden

  Being Happy, Lying, Men

  Another Time (1940) "September 1, 1939"

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• All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality in a statesman.

  W. H. Auden

  Leadership, Imagination, Quality

  "The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays". Book by W. H. Auden. Chapter: "The Poet and The City", p. 84, 1962.

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• Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.

  W. H. Auden

  Mean, Pleasure, Guides

  1963 The Dyer's Hand,'Reading'.

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• The law cannot forgive, for the law has not been wronged, only broken; only persons can be wronged. The law can pardon, but it can only pardon what it has the power to punish.

  W. H. Auden

  Law, Broken, Forgiving

  "The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("The Prince's Dog"), (p. 201), 1962.

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• There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think that , as a rule, a poet should read them.

  W. H. Auden

  Thinking, Firsts, Study

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• In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a unique perspective on the world, a member of a class of one.

  W. H. Auden

  Prayer, Unique, Class

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• Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays; By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

  W. H. Auden

  Rivers, Mourning, Tongue

  W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.148, DEBOLS!LLO

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• The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.

  W. H. Auden

  Taken, Criticism, Salt

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• The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the teacup opens A lane to the land of the dead.

  W. H. Auden

  Land, Bed, Cracks

  Another Time (1940) "As I Walked Out One Evening"

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• 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

  Race, May, Have Faith

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• 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

  Success, Patience, Work

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• The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.

  W. H. Auden

  Death, Men, Gmos

  W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.148, DEBOLS!LLO

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• The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have; Not universal love But to be loved alone.

  W. H. Auden

  Heart, Men, Errors

  "September 1, 1939" l. 59 (1939)

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• It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Money, Writing

  Dyer's Hand (1963) foreword

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