Quote

Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were.

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
Wishing
Sensual
Neither
Stop
Wish
Desire
Tantrums
Even
Wildest
Love
Persuade

More quotes by W. H. Auden

Image
There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think that , as a rule, a poet should read them.
W. H. Auden
Image
If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me.
W. H. Auden
Image
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
Image
Drama began as the act of a whole community. Ideally, there would be no speculators. In practice, every member of the audience should feel like an understudy.
W. H. Auden
Image
I see little hope for a peaceful world until men are excluded from the realm of foreign policy altogether and all decisions concerning international relations are reserved for women, preferably married ones.
W. H. Auden
Image
The most important truths are likely to be those which society at that time least wants to hear.
W. H. Auden
Image
Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance 'till you drop.
W. H. Auden
Image
May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that 'faith' is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?
W. H. Auden
Image
In life the loser's score is always zero.
W. H. Auden
Image
What we have not named as a symbol escapes our notice.
W. H. Auden
Image
Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
W. H. Auden
Image
To save your world you asked this man to die would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
W. H. Auden
Image
Of course, Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.
W. H. Auden
Image
A verbal art like poetry is reflective it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.
W. H. Auden
Image
My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.
W. H. Auden
Image
The Ogre does what ogres can, Deeds quite impossible for Man, But one prize is beyond his reach, The Ogre cannot master Speech: About a subjugated plain, Among its desperate and slain, The Ogre stalks with hands on hips, While drivel gushes from his lips.
W. H. Auden
Image
Laziness acknowledges the relation of the present to the past but ignores its relation to the future impatience acknowledge its relation to the future but ignores its relation to the past neither the lazy nor the impatient man, that is, accepts the present instant in its full reality and so cannot love his neighbour completely.
W. H. Auden
Image
A poet feels the impulse to create a work of art when the passive awe provoked by an event is transformed into a desire to express that awe in a rite of worship.
W. H. Auden
Image
It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly.
W. H. Auden
Image
A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish.
W. H. Auden