Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Young people, who are still uncertain of their identity, often try on a succession of masks in the hope of finding the… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
We who must die demand a miracle. How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become a finite fact? Nothing… — W. H. Auden 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 Copy Share Image
Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
The ideal audience the poet imagines consists of the beautiful who go to bed with him, the powerful who invite him to… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
If music in general is an imitation of history, opera in particular is an imitation of human willfulness; it is rooted in… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
If we apply the term revolution to what happened in North America between 1776 and 1829, it has a special meaning. Normally,… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
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 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
Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
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 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 return. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
