Death Quotes by W. H. Auden

11 Death quotes by W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden’s lyrical precision meets mortality in these eleven brief statements. The set offers a fast‑track to his blend of formal structure and emotional depth.

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Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.

W. H. Auden

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“The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.”

W. H. Auden

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No hero is mortal till he dies.

W. H. Auden

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Composing mortals with immortal fire.

W. H. Auden

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Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral

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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By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

W. H. Auden

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Those who hate to go to bed fear death; those who hate to get up fear life.

W. H. Auden

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The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.

W. H. Auden

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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

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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

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More by W. H. Auden

Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.

W. H. Auden

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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…

W. H. Auden

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The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience.

W. H. Auden

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Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.

W. H. Auden

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Most poetry is the utterance of a man in some state of passion, love, joy, grief, rage, etc., and no doubt this is as…

W. H. Auden

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Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores.

W. H. Auden

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If age, which is certainly Just as wicked as youth, look any wiser, It is only that youth is still able to believe It…

W. H. Auden

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“Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return”

W. H. Auden

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

W. H. Auden

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

W. H. Auden

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How happy the lot of the mathematician. He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or…

W. H. Auden

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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

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