110+ W. H. Auden Quotes On Social, Reflection And Wit

W. H. Auden was an English poet, playwright, and essayist. He was born in York, England in 1907 and is considered one of the most influential poets of the 20th century. His works are known for their wit, irony, and social commentary and often explore themes of love, politics, religion, and death. Following is our collection on famous quotes by W. H. Auden on love, social, reflection.

Top 10 W. H. Auden Quotes

1. Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
2. Water is the soul of the Earth.
3. All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation.
4. Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
5. 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.
6. We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know.
7. Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate.
8. Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance 'till you drop.
9. The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind.
10. No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.

W. H. Auden Image Quotes

Water is the soul of the Earth. — W. H. Auden

The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind. — W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden Short Quotes

• Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
• There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye.
• Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
• A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.
• A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.
• No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.
• Swans in the winter air A white perfection have
• Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.
• No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called Games.
• Criticism should be a casual conversation.

W. H. Auden Quotes About Love

Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading. — W. H. Auden

You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart. — W. H. Auden

I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky. — W. H. Auden

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. — W. H. Auden

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

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

Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were. — W. H. Auden

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

Money cannot buy the fuel of love but is excellent kindling. — W. H. Auden

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

W. H. Auden Quotes About Social

It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too much. I can see myself doing it. In England, one feels all the social restraints holding one back. But here, anything can happen. — W. H. Auden

The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen. — W. H. Auden

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

W. H. Auden Quotes About People

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

My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored; people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth. — 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

Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say — W. H. Auden

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do. — W. H. Auden

You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people. — W. H. Auden

Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts. — W. H. Auden

Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith. — W. H. Auden

Hemingway is terribly limited. His technique is good for short stories, for people who meet once in a bar very late at night, but do not enter into relations. But not for the novel. — W. H. Auden

Most people call something profound, not because it is near some important truth but because it is distant from ordinary life. Thus, darkness is profound to the eye, silence to the ear; what-is-not is the profundity of what-is. — W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden Quotes About Poet

A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true. — W. H. Auden

There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think that , as a rule, a poet should read them. — W. H. Auden

Recipe for the upbringing of a poet: 'As much neurosis as the child can bear. — W. H. Auden

A poet's hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere. — W. H. Auden

A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over. — W. H. Auden

A poet feels the impulse to create a work of art when the passive awe provoked by an event is transformed into a desire to express that awe in a rite of worship. — W. H. Auden

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

What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves. — W. H. Auden

I will love you forever" swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. "I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday" - Is that still as easy? — W. H. Auden

No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted. — W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden Quotes About Writing

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about. — W. H. Auden

Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers. — W. H. Auden

Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition. — W. H. Auden

The element of craftsmanship in poetry is obscured by the fact that all men are taught to speak and most to read and write, while very few men are taught to draw or paint or write music. — W. H. Auden

It's frightfully important for a writer to be his age, not to be younger or older than he is. One might ask, "What should I write at the age of sixty-four," but never, "What should I write in 1940." — W. H. Auden

And none will hear the postman's knockWithout a quickening of the heart.For who can bear to feel himself forgotten? — W. H. Auden

I just try to put the thing out and hope somebody will read it. Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I reply: 'Do you read me?' If they say 'Yes,' I say, 'Do you like it?' If they say 'No,' then I say, 'I don't write for you.' — W. H. Auden

Caesar's double-bed is warm As an unimportant clerk Writes i do not like my work On a pink official form. — W. H. Auden

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

The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor, simply because major poets write a lot. — W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden Quotes About Feel

Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings. — W. H. Auden

When I am 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

Man desires to be free and he desires to feel important. This places him in a dilemma, for the more he emancipates himself from necessity the less important he feels. — W. H. Auden

One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell. — W. H. Auden

Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings. — W. H. Auden

A poor American feels guilty at being poor, but less guilty than an American rentier who has inherited wealth but is doing nothingto increase it; what can the latter do but take to drink and psychoanalysis? — 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

Drama began as the act of a whole community. Ideally, there would be no speculators. In practice, every member of the audience should feel like an understudy. — W. H. Auden

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

The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident. — W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden Famous Quotes And Sayings

Water is the soul of the Earth. — W. H. Auden

The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind. — W. H. Auden

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

Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do. — W. H. Auden

History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology. — W. H. Auden

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

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

Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality. — W. H. Auden

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

Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic. — W. H. Auden

A person incapable of imaging another world than given to him by his senses would be subhuman, and a person who identifies his imaginary world with the world of sensory fact has become insane. — W. H. Auden

A vice in common can be the ground of a friendship but not a virtue in common. X and Y may be friends because they are both drunkards or womanizers but, if they are both sober and chaste, they are friends for some other reason. — W. H. Auden

Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return. — W. H. Auden

Dance, dance, dance till you drop. — W. H. Auden

Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow. — W. H. Auden

In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start. — W. H. Auden

Why doesn't the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the more they will dwindle. At least you could use it for a summer resort instead of Maine. — W. H. Auden

Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession. — W. H. Auden

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

The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable. — 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

There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love. — W. H. Auden

My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain. — W. H. Auden

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them. — W. H. Auden

Cats can be very funny, and have the oddest ways of showing they're glad to see you. — W. H. Auden

Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say. — W. H. Auden

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered. — W. H. Auden

One cannot review a bad book without showing off. — W. H. Auden

We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know. — W. H. Auden

Life is a picnic on a precipice. — W. H. Auden

Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read The hunter's waking thoughts. — W. H. Auden

The nightingales are sobbing in The orchards of our mothers, And hearts that we broke long ago Have long been breaking others; Tears are round, the sea is deep: Roll them overboard and sleep. — W. H. Auden

Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know. — W. H. Auden

The truly tragic kind of suffering is the kind produced and defiantly insisted upon by the hero himself so that, instead of making him better, it makes him worse and when he dies he is not reconciled to the law but defiant, that is, damned. Lear is not a tragic hero, Othello is. — W. H. Auden

A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become. — W. H. Auden

Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth. — W. H. Auden

The parlour cars and Pullmans are packed also with scented assassins, salad-eaters who murder on milk. — W. H. Auden

God may reduce you on Judgment Day to tears of shame, reciting by heart the poems you would have written, had your life been good. — W. H. Auden

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

I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation. — W. H. Auden

Of course,Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture. — W. H. Auden

If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away. — W. H. Auden

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

Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead. — W. H. Auden

In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or today. — W. H. Auden

The eye likes novelty, but the ear craves familiarity. — W. H. Auden

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, whatever they may be. — W. H. Auden

A man has his distinctive personal scent which his wife, his children and his dog can recognize. A crowd has a generalized stink. The public is odorless. — W. H. Auden

We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons. — W. H. Auden

Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off. — 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

The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid. — 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

Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame. — W. H. Auden

It takes little talent to see what lies under one's nose, a good deal to know in what direction to point that organ. — W. H. Auden

Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores. — W. H. Auden

The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living. — W. H. Auden

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table. — W. H. Auden

The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen. — W. H. Auden

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

Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell. — W. H. Auden

Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition. — W. H. Auden

Alone, alone, about the dreadful wood / Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind, / Dreading to find its Father. — W. H. Auden

In the end, art is small beer. The really serious things are earning one's living so as not to be a parasite and loving one's neighbor. — W. H. Auden

Life Lessons by W. H. Auden

W.H. Auden's poetry often reflects a deep understanding of human nature and the human condition. He encourages readers to think deeply about their own lives, and to consider the consequences of their actions. His work encourages readers to live life with intention, to be aware of the world around them, and to strive for a better future.