To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
If it form the one landscape that we the inconstant ones Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly Because it dissolves in… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
If there are any souls in hell, it is because that is where they insist on being. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
I just try to put the thing out and hope somebody will read it. Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
A vice in common can be the ground of a friendship but not a virtue in common. X and Y may be… — 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
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
There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, ''Did you get… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays… — 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
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
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 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… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do; it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless… — 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… — 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 Copy Share Image
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
Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible. — W. H. Auden Copy Share
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
The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience. — W. H. Auden Copy Share
Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart. — W. H. Auden Copy Share
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
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
I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. — W. H. Auden Copy Share
One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell. — W. H. Auden Copy Share
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
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
The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the… — W. H. Auden Copy Share
Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral — W. H. Auden Copy Share
