Quote

All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our time, is only a letter written to oneself.

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
Time
Oneself
Sick
Friend
Written
Art
Amuse
Nature
Letter
Much
Particularly
Good
Letters

More quotes by W. H. Auden

Image
The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.
W. H. Auden
Image
Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession.
W. H. Auden
Image
We are all here on earth to help others.
W. H. Auden
Image
No being can make another one happy.
W. H. Auden
Image
Out on the lawn I lie in bed, Vega conspicuous overhead.
W. H. Auden
Image
Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.
W. H. Auden
Image
A writer is a maker, not a man of action: his private life is of no concern to anybody but himself, his family and his friends.
W. H. Auden
Image
the child unlucky in his little State, Some hearth where freedom is excluded, A hive whose honey is fear and worry, Feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape
W. H. Auden
Image
Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.
W. H. Auden
Image
Words are for those with promises to keep.
W. H. Auden
Image
Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.
W. H. Auden
Image
No hero is mortal till he dies.
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
Thou shalt not answer questionnaires Or quizzes upon world affairs, Nor with compliance Take any test. Thou shalt not sit with statisticians nor commit A social science.
W. H. Auden
Image
A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.
W. H. Auden
Image
The eye likes novelty, but the ear craves familiarity.
W. H. Auden
Image
Blessed be all metrical rules that forbid automatic responses, force us to have second thoughts, free us from the fetters of Self.
W. H. Auden
Image
Human language is mythological and metaphorical by nature.
W. H. Auden
Image
It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly.
W. H. Auden
Image
If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then the best lives for the writer to observe are those in which the role of natural necessity is clearest, namely, the lives of the very poor.
W. H. Auden