Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance 'till you drop. — W. H. Auden Art dance Copy Share Image
To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
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 Books Copy Share Image
Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot… — W. H. Auden Driven Copy Share Image
Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Drama began as the act of a whole community. Ideally, there would be no speculators. In practice, every member of the audience… — W. H. Auden Audience Copy Share 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 Blessed Copy Share Image
Clear, unscaleable ahead, Rise the mountains of instead From whose cold, cascading streams None may drink except in dreams — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or today. — W. H. Auden Before sunrise Copy Share Image
A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has… — W. H. Auden America Copy Share Image
Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or… — W. H. Auden Creation Copy Share Image
One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a… — W. H. Auden Age Copy Share Image
Of course, Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use… — W. H. Auden Duty Copy Share Image
Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people… — W. H. Auden Modern poetry Copy Share Image
God is Love, we are taught as children to believe. But when we first begin to get some inkling of how He… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
The Americans are violently oral. That's why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all --… — W. H. Auden America Copy Share Image
Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the horizontal one — W. H. Auden Honor Copy Share Image
The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen. — W. H. Auden Acting Copy Share Image
The lights must never go out, The music must always play — W. H. Auden Inspirational Copy Share Image
For time is inches And the heart's changes, Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted. — W. H. Auden Futility Copy Share Image
The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
