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A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
Author
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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
Content
Raises
Remain
Question
Existence
Interest
Self
Raise
Enough
Sufficient

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A poet's hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.
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It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will.
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There was still gold and silver in the mountains, And hunger was a more immediate sorrow
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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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Human language is mythological and metaphorical by nature.
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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.
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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.
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Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.
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Words are for those with promises to keep.
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Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss
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To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, is a keen observer of life. The word Intellectual suggests straight away. A man who's untrue to his wife.
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O let not Time deceive you, You cannot conquer Time.
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No hero is mortal till he dies.
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What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one's gifts?
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All I have is a voice.
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Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
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Our claim to our own bodies and our world is our catastrophe.
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In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required.
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As a rule, it was the pleasure-haters who became unjust.
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I will love you forever swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday - Is that still as easy?
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