Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.
W. H. Auden
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
Author
Composer
Essayist
Librettist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Responsibility
Aristocracy
American
Poetic
Upon
Literary
Whole
Contemporary
Feels
Fallen
Every
Shoulders
Poet
Poetry
More quotes by W. H. Auden
I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.
W. H. Auden
I said earlier that I do not believe an artist's life throws much light upon his works. I do believe, however, that, more often than most people realize, his works may throw light upon his life. An artist with certain imaginative ideas in his head may then involve himself in relationships which are congenial to them.
W. H. Auden
Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good.
W. H. Auden
We honor founders of these starving cities, Whose honor is the image of our sorrow.
W. H. Auden
The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind.
W. H. Auden
Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.
W. H. Auden
Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
W. H. Auden
We must love one another or die
W. H. Auden
Now is the age of anxiety.
W. H. Auden
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
I used to try and concentrate the poem so much that there wasn't a word that wasn't essential. This leads to becoming boring and constipated.
W. H. Auden
Let all your thinks be thanks.
W. H. Auden
Criticism should be a casual conversation.
W. H. Auden
Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.
W. H. Auden
A dead man who never caused others to die seldom rates a statue.
W. H. Auden
Man desires to be free and he desires to feel important. This places him in a dilemma, for the more he emancipates himself from necessity the less important he feels.
W. H. Auden
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
W. H. Auden
Political history is far too criminal to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villians from fiction.
W. H. Auden
The poet who writes free verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor - dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor.
W. H. Auden
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
