Quote

Oh, how I wish that Orwell were still alive, so that I could read his comments on contemporary events!

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
Contemporary
Events
Alive
Read
Wish
Science
Orwell
Stills
Comments
Comment
Still

More quotes by W. H. Auden

Image
To me Art's subject is the human clay, / And landscape but a background to a torso / All Cezanne's apples I would give away / For one small Goya or a Daumier.
W. H. Auden
Image
We who must die demand a miracle. How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become a finite fact? Nothing can save us that is possible: We who must die demand a miracle.
W. H. Auden
Image
You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.
W. H. Auden
Image
Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
W. H. Auden
Image
Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on.
W. H. Auden
Image
But he would have us most of all remember to be enthusiastic over the night. Not only for the sense of wonder it alone has to offer but also because it needs our love. For with sad eyes its delectable creatures look up and beg us dumbly to ask them to follow. They are exiles who long for a future that lies in our power.
W. H. Auden
Image
The stars are not wanted now, put out every one Pack up the moon & dismantle the sun.
W. H. Auden
Image
Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate.
W. H. Auden
Image
In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.
W. H. Auden
Image
In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required.
W. H. Auden
Image
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.
W. H. Auden
Image
The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.
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
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
Image
Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.
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
Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
W. H. Auden
Image
Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.
W. H. Auden
Image
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
Image
Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity.
W. H. Auden