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Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.
W. H. Auden
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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
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Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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More quotes by W. H. Auden
Life is a picnic on a precipice.
W. H. Auden
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
In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero.
W. H. Auden
Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle.
W. H. Auden
Our claim to our own bodies and our world is our catastrophe.
W. H. Auden
There are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children.
W. H. Auden
Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.
W. H. Auden
When one looks into the window of a store which sells devotional art objects, one can't help wishing the iconoclasts had won.
W. H. Auden
The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten.
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What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves.
W. H. Auden
Hunger allows no choice.
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Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.
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The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind.
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Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.
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O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you've missed.
W. H. Auden
All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our time, is only a letter written to oneself.
W. H. Auden
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.
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Weep for the lives your wishes never led.
W. H. Auden
Clear, unscaleable ahead, Rise the mountains of instead From whose cold, cascading streams None may drink except in dreams
W. H. Auden
The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.
W. H. Auden
