A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
That the speech of self-disclosure should be translatable seems to me very odd, but I am convinced that it is. The conclusion… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
One demands two things of a poem. Firstly, it must be a well-made verbal object that does honor to the language in… — 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
