Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
A dead man who never caused others to die seldom rates a statue.
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
Dies
Others
Statue
Never
Statues
Men
Rates
Caused
Seldom
Rate
Dead
More quotes by W. H. Auden
The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind.
W. H. Auden
Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.
W. H. Auden
Encased in talent like a uniform, The rank of every poet is well known They can amaze us like a thunderstorm, Or die so young, or live for years alone.
W. H. Auden
To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.
W. H. Auden
A poem is a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motorcycle.
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
In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero.
W. H. Auden
August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier.
W. H. Auden
Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings.
W. H. Auden
We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.
W. H. Auden
All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our time, is only a letter written to oneself.
W. H. Auden
Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.
W. H. Auden
It is already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure as in earlier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy. When one recalls how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not cheerful.
W. H. Auden
Good can imagine Evil but Evil cannot imagine Good.
W. H. Auden
One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a person and turn him into an automaton, the surest method is not physical torture, in the strict sense, but simply to keep him awake, i.e., in an existential relation to life without intermission.
W. H. Auden
My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.
W. H. Auden
The lights must never go out, The music must always play
W. H. Auden
To make one, there must be two.
W. H. Auden
Our claim to our own bodies and our world is our catastrophe.
W. H. Auden
The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.
W. H. Auden