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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
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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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More quotes by W. H. Auden
Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.
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Dogmatic theological statements are neither logical propositions nor poetic utterances. They are ''shaggy dog'' stories they have a point, but he who tries too hard to get it will miss it.
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Our claim to our own bodies and our world is our catastrophe.
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Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won't believe again in their own size.
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Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.
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A false enchantment can all too easily last a lifetime.
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We were put on this Earth to help others. Why others were put here is beyond me.
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The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born.
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Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity. Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money. Compared with him even Balzac is a romantic.
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The only reason the Protestants and Catholics have given up the idea of universal domination is because they've realised they can't get away with it.
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The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience.
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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.
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History marched to the drums of a clear idea...
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The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.
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To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith
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Harrow the house of the dead look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.
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The poet who writes free verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor - dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor.
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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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The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind.
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Each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom.
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