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 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
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
Though one cannot always Remember exactly why one has been happy, There is no forgetting that one was. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet:… — 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
In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it: they… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Left to itself the masculine imagination has very little appreciation for the here and now; it prefers to dwell on what is… — 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
