Quote

Be subtle, various, ornamental, clever, And do not listen to those critics ever Whose crude provincial gullets crave in books Plain cooking made still plainer by plain cooks.

W. H. Auden

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Books
Cooks
Stills
Subtle
Still
Clever
Plainer
Ever
Cooking
Ornamental
Book
Critics
Provincial
Made
Various
Crude
Whose
Crave
Listen
Plain

More quotes by W. H. Auden

Image
Private faces in public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces in private places.
W. H. Auden
Image
See without looking, hear without listening, breathe without asking.
W. H. Auden
Image
One of the troubles of our times is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters.
W. H. Auden
Image
Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on.
W. H. Auden
Image
How happy the lot of the mathematician. He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve.
W. H. Auden
Image
Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup.
W. H. Auden
Image
Oh, how I wish that Orwell were still alive, so that I could read his comments on contemporary events!
W. H. Auden
Image
Some books are undeservedly forgotten none are undeservedly remembered.
W. H. Auden
Image
To ask the hard question is simple.
W. H. Auden
Image
Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.
W. H. Auden
Image
An honest self-portrait is extremely rare because a man who has reached the degree of self-consciousness presupposed by the desire to paint his own portrait has almost always also developed an ego-consciousness which paints himself painting himself, and introduces artificial highlights and dramatic shadows.
W. H. Auden
Image
Composing mortals with immortal fire.
W. H. Auden
Image
In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required.
W. H. Auden
Image
Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings.
W. H. Auden
Image
God is Love, we are taught as children to believe. But when we first begin to get some inkling of how He loves us, we are repelled it seems so cold, indeed, not love at all as we understand the word.
W. H. Auden
Image
Thou shalt not answer questionnaires Or quizzes upon world affairs, Nor with compliance Take any test. Thou shalt not sit with statisticians nor commit A social science.
W. H. Auden
Image
Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle.
W. H. Auden
Image
Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
W. H. Auden
Image
The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.
W. H. Auden
Image
Harrow the house of the dead look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.
W. H. Auden