1
Some books are undeservedly forgotten none are undeservedly remembered.W. H. Auden
2
Cathedrals Luxury liners laden with souls Holding to the east their hulls of stone.W. H. Auden
3
Let us humour if we can The vertical man Though we value none But the horizontal one.W. H. Auden
4
Choice of attention to pay attention to this and ignore that is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer.W. H. Auden
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Choice of attention ... is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences whatever they may be.W. H. Auden
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What the mass media offer is not popular art but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food forgotten and replaced by a new dish.W. H. Auden
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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
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Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.W. H. Auden
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If we really want to live we'd better start at once to try.W. H. Auden
10
We are all here on earth to help others what on earth the others are here for I don't know.W. H. Auden
11
It is nonsense to speak of 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures. To a hungry man it is rightly more important that he eat than that he philosophize.W. H. Auden
12
To be happy means to be free not from pain or fear but from care or anxiety.W. H. Auden
13
Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.W. H. Auden
14
Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation a mental or physical barter to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.W. H. Auden
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Among those whom I like or admire I can find no common denominator but among those whom I love I can: all of them make me laugh.W. H. Auden
16
Any marriage happy or unhappy is infinitely more interesting and significant than any romance however passionate.W. H. Auden
17
My poetry doesn't change from place to place - it changes with the years. It's very important to be one's age. You get ideas you have to turn down - 'I'm sorry no longer' 'I'm sorry not yet.'W. H. Auden
18
The ear tends to be lazy craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected the eye on the other hand tends to be impatient craves the novel and is bored by repetition.W. H. Auden
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Nobody can honestly think of himself as a strong character because however successful he may be in overcoming them he is necessarily aware of the doubts and temptations that accompany every important choice.W. H. Auden
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Choice of attention-to pay attention to this and ignore that-is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences.W. H. Auden
21
About suffering they were never wrong The Old Masters How well they understood Its human position how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.W. H. Auden
22
When we do evil We and our victims Are equally bewildered.W. H. Auden
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It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practising it.W. H. Auden
24
Learn from your dreams what you lack.W. H. Auden
25
If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me.W. H. Auden
26
'Healing, ' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'W. H. Auden
27
When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.W. H. Auden
28
A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.W. H. Auden
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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.W. H. Auden
30
Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.W. H. Auden
31
The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.W. H. Auden
32
No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.W. H. Auden
33
A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.W. H. Auden
34
Music is the best means we have of digesting time.W. H. Auden
35
I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.W. H. Auden
36
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
37
Now is the age of anxiety.W. H. Auden
38
History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.W. H. Auden
39
May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that 'faith' is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?W. H. Auden
40
Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say.W. H. Auden
41
Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.W. H. Auden
42
In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a unique perspective on the world, a member of a class of one.W. H. Auden
43
Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate.W. H. Auden
44
Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.W. H. Auden
45
We are all here on earth to help others what on earth the others are here for I don't know.W. H. Auden
46
Art is born of humiliation.W. H. Auden
47
It's a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.W. H. Auden
48
It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.W. H. Auden
49
Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.W. H. Auden
50
Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.W. H. Auden