“For a desert island, one would choose a good dictionary rather than the greatest literary masterpiece imaginable, for, in relation to its readers, a dictionary is absolutely passive and may legitimately be read in an infinite number of ways.” — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“Part came from Lane, and part from D.H. Lawrence; Gide, though I didn't know it then, gave part. They taught me to express my… — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“As his wife, Emilia must know Iago better than anybody else. She does not know, any more than the others, that he is malevolent,… — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“A child's reading is guided by pleasure, but his pleasure is undifferentiated; he cannot distinguish, for example, between aesthetic pleasure and the pleasures of… — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“No poet or novelist wishes he was the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive,… — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“Human "nature" is a nature continually in quest of itself, obliged at every moment to transcend what it was a moment before.” — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“Cassio is a ladies’ man, that is to say, a man who feels most at home in feminine company where his looks and good… — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm; Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave… — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“In any first-class work of art, you can find passages that in themselves are extremely boring, but try to cut them out, as they… — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“For a desert island, one would choose a good dictionary rather than the greatest literary masterpiece imaginable, for, in relation to its readers, a… — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“Our hunting fathers told the story Of the sadness of the creatures, Pitied the limits and the lack Set in their finished features; Saw… — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“After Portia has trapped Shylock through his own insistence upon the letter of the law of Contract, she produces another law by which any… — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“Iago’s treatment of Othello conforms to Bacon’s definition of scientific enquiry as putting Nature to the Question. If a member of the audience were… — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
“But round your image there is no fog, and the Earth can still astonish.” — W.H. Auden Copy Share Image
![“Cassio is a ladies’ man, that is to say, a man who feels most at home in feminine company where his looks and good manners make him popular, but is ill at ease in the company of his own sex because he is unsure of his own masculinity. […] Cassio is a ladies’ man, not a seducer. With women of his…” quote by W.H. Auden](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/cb5/w-h-auden-2-7412_business_cassio-is-a-ladies-man-that-is-to-say-a_87978.jpg)
![“After Portia has trapped Shylock through his own insistence upon the letter of the law of Contract, she produces another law by which any alien who conspires against the life of a Venetian citizen forfeits his goods and places his life at the Doge’s mercy. […] Shakespeare, it seems to me, was…” quote by W.H. Auden](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/25c/w-h-auden-2-7412_antisemitism_after-portia-has-trapped-shylock-through_382814.jpg)
