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Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.
W. H. Auden
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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
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Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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More quotes by W. H. Auden
A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it.
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I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky.
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The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.
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Though one cannot always Remember exactly why one has been happy, There is no forgetting that one was.
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The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us. I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient. I hope not. I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive.
W. H. Auden
A person incapable of imaging another world than given to him by his senses would be subhuman, and a person who identifies his imaginary world with the world of sensory fact has become insane.
W. H. Auden
Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup.
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For time is inches And the heart's changes, Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted.
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Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.
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Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.
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There is a great deal of difference in believing something still, and believing it again.
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Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read The hunter's waking thoughts.
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Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss
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I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.
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Love each other or perish.
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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.
W. H. Auden
My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.
W. H. Auden
Yet no one hears his own remarks as prose.
W. H. Auden
Clear, unscaleable ahead, Rise the mountains of instead From whose cold, cascading streams None may drink except in dreams
W. H. Auden
Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.
W. H. Auden
