Quote

Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.

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
Encourage
Families
Curious
Older
Others
Genealogy
Things
Admirable
Provided
Delusion

More quotes by W. H. Auden

Image
I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.
W. H. Auden
Image
Every high C accurately struck demolishes the theory that we are the irresponsible puppets of fate or chance.
W. H. Auden
Image
Be subtle, various, ornamental, clever, And do not listen to those critics ever Whose crude provincial gullets crave in books Plain cooking made still plainer by plain cooks.
W. H. Auden
Image
The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience.
W. H. Auden
Image
Beloved, we are always in the wrong, Handling so clumsily our stupid lives, Suffering too little or too long, Too careful even in our selfish loves: The decorative manias we obey Die in grimaces round us every day, Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice Which utters an absurd command - Rejoice.
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
What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.
W. H. Auden
Image
In life the loser's score is always zero.
W. H. Auden
Image
A small grove massacred to the last ash, An oak with heart-rot, give away the show: This great society is going to smash They cannot fool us with how fast they go, How much they cost each other and the gods. A culture is no better than its woods.
W. H. Auden
Image
Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read The hunter's waking thoughts.
W. H. Auden
Image
We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.
W. H. Auden
Image
Political history is far too criminal to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villians from fiction.
W. H. Auden
Image
Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind.
W. H. Auden
Image
Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won't believe again in their own size.
W. H. Auden
Image
The relation of faith between subject and object is unique in every case. Hundreds may believe, but each has to believe by himself.
W. H. Auden
Image
He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
W. H. Auden
Image
You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.
W. H. Auden
Image
I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.
W. H. Auden
Image
Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral
W. H. Auden
Image
In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero.
W. H. Auden