Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do. — W. H. Auden Death Copy Share Image
We do not change as we grow up. The difference between the child and the adult is that the former doesn't know… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a… — W. H. Auden Class Copy Share Image
Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self. — W. H. Auden Autobiography Copy Share Image
Political history is far too criminal to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and… — W. H. Auden Copy Share 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 Acting Copy Share Image
The poet who writes "free" verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
To my generation no other English poet seemed so perfectly to express the sensibility of a male adolescent. If I do not… — W. H. Auden Generations Copy Share Image
Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the… — W. H. Auden Age Copy Share Image
“The element of craftsmanship in poetry is obscured by the fact that all men are taught to speak and most to read… — W. H. Auden Craftsmanship Copy Share Image
America has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a… — W. H. Auden Amateurs Copy Share Image
Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to… — W. H. Auden Affection Copy Share Image
As biological organisms made of matter, we are subject to the laws of physics and biology: as conscious persons who create our… — W. H. Auden Art Copy Share Image
The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart. — W. H. Auden Architecture Copy Share Image
In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero. — W. H. Auden Football Copy Share Image
One rational voice is dumb: over a grave The household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved. Sad is Eros, builder of cities,… — W. H. Auden Aphrodite Copy Share Image
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those I love, I can: all of… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
And make us as Newton was, who in his garden watching The apple falling towards England, became aware Between himself and her… — W. H. Auden Apples Copy Share Image
We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know. — W. H. Auden Earth Copy Share Image
All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: "I refuse to be what I am." — W. H. Auden Happiness Copy Share Image
It takes little talent to see what lies under one's nose, a good deal to know in what direction to point that… — W. H. Auden Talent Copy Share Image
Few can remember clearly when innocence came to a sudden end, the moment at which we ask for the first time: Am… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy… — W. H. Auden Aristocracy Copy Share Image
'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.' — W. H. Auden Art Copy Share Image
He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my… — W. H. Auden Death Copy Share Image
I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest… — W. H. Auden Clever Copy Share Image
When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a… — W. H. Auden Business Copy Share Image
the child unlucky in his little State, Some hearth where freedom is excluded, A hive whose honey is fear and worry, Feels… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
An unmanly sort of man whose love life seems to have been largely confined to crying in laps and playing mouse. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
A poet feels the impulse to create a work of art when the passive awe provoked by an event is transformed into… — W. H. Auden Art Copy Share Image
What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one's gifts? — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Sexual fidelity is more important in a homosexual relationship than in any other. In other relationships there are a variety of ties.… — W. H. Auden Fidelity Copy Share Image
In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become. — W. H. Auden Art Copy Share Image
Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
