W. H. Auden: Trending quotes

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W. H. Auden: 244 quotes28 likes

“Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.”

“When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"The Poet & The City", p. 81
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“In the late Middle Ages there were, no doubt, many persons in monasteries and convents who had no business there and should have been out in the world earning an honest living, but today it may very well be that there are many persons trying to earn a living in the world and driven by failure into mental homes whose true home would be the cloister.”

W. H. Auden book Forewords and Afterwords

"The Protestant Mystics", p. 73
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.”

Funeral Blues (1936)

“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”

Squares and Oblongs, in Poets at Work (1948), p. 170

“Out of the air a voice without a face
Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
No one was cheered and nothing was discussed…”

W. H. Auden book The Shield of Achilles

The Shield of Achilles (1952)

“Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Reading", p. 10
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“Most people are even less original in their dreaming than in their waking life; their dreams are more monotonous than their thoughts and oddly enough, more literary.”

W. H. Auden book Forewords and Afterwords

"Walter de la Mare", p. 393
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

“The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.”

"August 1968"

“About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters.”

W. H. Auden Musée des Beaux Arts

Source: Musée des Beaux Arts (1938), Lines 1–2

“I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.”

W. H. Auden September 1, 1939

Source: September 1, 1939 (1939), Lines 19–22

“No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Notes on Music and Opera", p. 472
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"The Virgin & The Dynamo", p. 62
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“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 book Forewords and Afterwords

"One of the Family", p. 369
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

“A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.”

Often attributed to Auden, but he was repeating an anonymous joke; he did not claim to have originated it. See "Who Wrote Auden's Definition of a Professor?" http://www.audensociety.org/definition.html <br class="br">Misattributed

“One cannot review a bad book without showing off.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Reading", p. 11
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: "For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages," what just reason could he give for refusing? But nobody says this. The self-appointed unqualified nurse says: "You are to sing the patient a song which will make him believe that I, and I alone, can cure him. If you can't or won't, I shall confiscate your passport and send you to the mines." And the poor patient in his delirium cries: "Please sing me a song which will give me sweet dreams instead of nightmares. If you succeed, I will give you a penthouse in New York or a ranch in Arizona."”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Writing", p. 27
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation.”

"Hell"
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970)

“No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.”

Not by Auden; sources from the 1980s attribute it to the Rev. W. A. Nance (the name seems to have been confused with Auden's).
Misattributed

“The stars are dead. The animals will not look.
We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and
History to the defeated
May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.”

W. H. Auden book Spain

Source: Spain (1937), Lines 101–104