Quote

The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.

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
Helping
Animals
Left
Short
Cannot
Dead
May
Animal
Look
Alone
Looks
Stars
Pardon
Time
Help
Alas
History
Defeated

More quotes by W. H. Auden

Image
A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish.
W. H. Auden
Image
Say this city has ten million souls, Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes: Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.
W. H. Auden
Image
Each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom.
W. H. Auden
Image
Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were.
W. H. Auden
Image
There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye.
W. H. Auden
Image
A dead man who never caused others to die seldom rates a statue.
W. H. Auden
Image
Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings.
W. H. Auden
Image
A vice in common can be the ground of a friendship but not a virtue in common. X and Y may be friends because they are both drunkards or womanizers but, if they are both sober and chaste, they are friends for some other reason.
W. H. Auden
Image
Good can imagine Evil but Evil cannot imagine Good.
W. H. Auden
Image
Earth, receive an honored guest William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry.
W. H. Auden
Image
Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.
W. H. Auden
Image
Hunger allows no choice.
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
What is a Professor of Poetry? How can poetry be professed?
W. H. Auden
Image
Love each other or perish.
W. H. Auden
Image
Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
W. H. Auden
Image
Few can remember clearly when innocence came to a sudden end, the moment at which we ask for the first time: Am I loved?
W. H. Auden
Image
a culture is no better than its woods
W. H. Auden
Image
All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: I refuse to be what I am.
W. H. Auden
Image
The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.
W. H. Auden