Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.
W. H. Auden
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Every
Men
Carries
Life
Carrie
Mirror
Mirrors
Shadow
Unique
Impossible
More quotes by W. H. Auden
Courses in prosody, rhetoric and comparative philology would be required of all students, and every student would have to select three courses out of courses in mathematics, natural history, geology, meteorology, archaeology, mythology, liturgics, cooking.
W. H. Auden
Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
W. H. Auden
The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages, what just reason could he give for refusing?
W. H. Auden
Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs.
W. H. Auden
All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.
W. H. Auden
We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons.
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
Weep for the lives your wishes never led.
W. H. Auden
The definition of prayer is paying careful and concentrated attention to something other than your own constructions.
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
We are lived by powers we pretend to understand.
W. H. Auden
One can only blaspheme if one believes.
W. H. Auden
The trees encountered on a country stroll Reveal a lot about that country's soul ... A culture is no better than its woods.
W. H. Auden
Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.
W. H. Auden
A false enchantment can all too easily last a lifetime.
W. H. Auden
Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading.
W. H. Auden
Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
W. H. Auden
No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
W. H. Auden
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
The true men of action in our time, those who transform the world, are not the politicians and statesmen, but the scientists
W. H. Auden
