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Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
Author
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Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Never
Deep
Square
Fire
Waters
Water
Squares
Desire
Tea
Running
Cups
Stills
Smoke
Still
Tongue
Without
Dear

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It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly.
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And make us as Newton was, who in his garden watching The apple falling towards England, became aware Between himself and her of an eternal tie.
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It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will.
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Moreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses have no right whatsoever to resist them.
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To save your world you asked this man to die would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
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We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbor because our natural attitude toward the other is one of either indifference or hostility.
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Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.
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What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one's gifts?
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You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people.
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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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Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one.
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All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall, And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all.
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Marriage is rarely bliss But, surely it would be worse As particles to pelt At thousands of miles per sec About a universe In which a lover's kiss Would either not be felt Or break the loved one's neck.
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Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.
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What we have not named as a symbol escapes our notice.
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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.
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You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-obje ct look.
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A dead man who never caused others to die seldom rates a statue.
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