Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
One rational voice is dumb: over a grave The household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved. Sad is Eros, builder of cities, And weeping anarchic Aphrodite.
W. H. Auden
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Dumb
Builder
Rational
Mourning
Cities
Mourn
Loved
Weeping
Mourns
Voice
Household
Anarchic
Death
Grave
Aphrodite
Graves
Eros
Impulse
Dearly
More quotes by W. H. Auden
In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever.
W. H. Auden
There are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children.
W. H. Auden
Words are for those with promises to keep.
W. H. Auden
Young people, who are still uncertain of their identity, often try on a succession of masks in the hope of finding the one which suits them - the one, in fact, which is not a mask.
W. H. Auden
Precisely because we do not communicate by singing, a song can be out of place but not out of character it is just as credible that a stupid person should sing beautifully as that a clever person should do so.
W. H. Auden
Poetry makes nothing happen.
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.
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
But if a stranger in the train asks me my occupation, I never answer writer for fear that he may go on to ask me what I write, and to answer poetry would embarrass us both, for we both know that nobody can earn a living simply by writing poetry.
W. H. Auden
Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse.
W. H. Auden
The camera may do justice to laughter, but must degrade sorrow.
W. H. Auden
Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
W. H. Auden
The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have Not universal love But to be loved alone.
W. H. Auden
Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
W. H. Auden
The eye likes novelty, but the ear craves familiarity.
W. H. Auden
The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me.
W. H. Auden
There is a great deal of difference in believing something still, and believing it again.
W. H. Auden
Each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom.
W. H. Auden
So long as we think of it objectively, time is Fate or Chance, the factor in our lives for which we are not responsible, and about which we can do nothing but when we begin to think of it subjectively, we feel responsible for our time, and the notion of punctuality arises.
W. H. Auden
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