W. H. Auden Quotes - Page 15

Quotes about:

• Acts of injustice done
  Between the setting and the rising sun
  In history lie like bones, each one.

  W. H. Auden

  Lying, Rising, Done

  "The Ascent of F6: A Tragedy in Two Acts". Play by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, 1936.

  4 Copy quote

• The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.

  W. H. Auden

  Hero, Pilots, Aces

  5 Copy quote

• Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same time prevented from ever clashing.

  W. H. Auden

  Mean, Government, Choices

  6 Copy quote

• Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation.

  W. H. Auden

  Practice, Separation, Theory

  "A Certain World: A Commonplace Book" by W. H. Auden, Viking Press, 1st edition, ("Tyranny"), 1970.

  7 Copy quote

• There is a great deal of difference in believing something still, and believing it again.

  W. H. Auden

  Believe, Differences, Deals

  6 Copy quote

• There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, ''Did you get an erection?'' If the answer is ''Yes'' from a majority of the twelve, then the book is pornographic.

  W. H. Auden

  Book, Men, Majority

  10 Copy quote

• Dance, dance, dance till you drop.

  W. H. Auden

  Dance, Ballet Class, Dancing

  'Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.' (1937).

  28 Copy quote

• I'm always amazed at the American practice of allowing one party to a homosexual act to remain passive--it's so undemocratic. Sexmust be mutual.

  W. H. Auden

  Party, Practice, Homosexuality

  6 Copy quote

• Hemingway is terribly limited. His technique is good for short stories, for people who meet once in a bar very late at night, but do not enter into relations. But not for the novel.

  W. H. Auden

  Writing, Night, People

  7 Copy quote

• At first critics classified authors as Ancients, that is to say, Greek and Latin authors, and Moderns, that is to say, every post-Classical Author. Then they classified them by eras, the Augustans, the Victorians, etc., and now they classify them by decades, the writers of the '30's, '40's, etc. Very soon, it seems, they will be labeling authors, like automobiles, by the year.

  W. H. Auden

  Latin, Years, Greek

  "The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("Reading"), (p. 12), 1962.

  4 Copy quote

• Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss

  W. H. Auden

  Nature, Moving, Moss

  'The Fall of Rome' (1951)

  95 Copy quote

• The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order The dance's pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy The tune is catching and will not stop Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop.

  W. H. Auden

  Stars, Heart, Men

  Letter from Iceland (1937, by Auden and MacNeice) "Letter to William Coldstream, Esq."

  7 Copy quote

• We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons.

  W. H. Auden

  Sunny Afternoon, Shy, Sunny Day

  12 Copy quote

• Beloved, we are always in the wrong, Handling so clumsily our stupid lives, Suffering too little or too long, Too careful even in our selfish loves: The decorative manias we obey Die in grimaces round us every day, Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice Which utters an absurd command - Rejoice.

  W. H. Auden

  Selfish, Stupid, Voice

  4 Copy quote

• The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.

  W. H. Auden

  Self, Feelings, Doubt

  "Forewords and Afterwords" by W. H. Auden, ("The Protestant Mystics"), (p. 51), 1973.

  7 Copy quote

• Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won't believe again in their own size.

  W. H. Auden

  Believe, Long, Giants

  4 Copy quote

• Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he'll escape.

  W. H. Auden

  Dance, Children, Ballet

  7 Copy quote

• Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.

  W. H. Auden

  Money, Book, Confession

  6 Copy quote

• I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.

  W. H. Auden

  Jobs, Acting, Looks

  7 Copy quote

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

  W. H. Auden

  Car, Assassins, Salad

  14 Copy quote

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

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Lying, Poetry

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

  7 Copy quote

• There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.

  W. H. Auden

  Parades, Ends, Novel

  4 Copy quote

• Few can remember
  clearly when innocence came
  to a sudden end,
  the moment at which we ask
  for the first time: Am I loved?

  W. H. Auden

  Firsts, Innocence, Remember

  W. H. Auden, Katherine Bucknell (2003). “Juvenilia: Poems, 1922-1928”, p.28, Princeton University Press

  4 Copy quote

• So long as we think of it objectively, time is Fate or Chance, the factor in our lives for which we are not responsible, and about which we can do nothing; but when we begin to think of it subjectively, we feel responsible for our time, and the notion of punctuality arises.

  W. H. Auden

  Fate, Thinking, Long

  4 Copy quote

• Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.

  W. H. Auden

  Change, Heart, Shining

  'Sir, No Man's Enemy' (1955)

  4 Copy quote

Page 15 of 18

First

← Prev

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin