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How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.
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
The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.
W. H. Auden
Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another...
W. H. Auden
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
W. H. Auden
When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
W. H. Auden
A person incapable of imaging another world than given to him by his senses would be subhuman, and a person who identifies his imaginary world with the world of sensory fact has become insane.
W. H. Auden
My poetry doesn't change from place to place - it changes with the years. It's very important to be one's age. You get ideas you have to turn down - 'I'm sorry, no longer' 'I'm sorry, not yet.
W. H. Auden
Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
W. H. Auden
But if a stranger in the train asks me my occupation, I never answer writer for fear that he may go on to ask me what I write, and to answer poetry would embarrass us both, for we both know that nobody can earn a living simply by writing poetry.
W. H. Auden
Harrow the house of the dead look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.
W. H. Auden
Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood But noble platitudes - ah, there's a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that's genuinely good From one that's base but merely has succeeded.
W. H. Auden
All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall, And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all.
W. H. Auden
A false enchantment can all too easily last a lifetime.
W. H. Auden
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
Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay If I could tell you I would let you know.
W. H. Auden
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
It takes little talent to see what lies under one's nose, a good deal to know in what direction to point that organ.
W. H. Auden
A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.
W. H. Auden
I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.
W. H. Auden
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
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
