A man is a form of life that dreams in order to act and acts in order to dream. — 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
Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores. — 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
A writer is a maker, not a man of action: his private life is of no concern to anybody but himself, his… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the horizontal one — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
The true men of action in our time, those who transform the world, are not the politicians and statesmen, but the scientists — 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
Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links, Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly… — 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
To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, is a keen observer of life. The word Intellectual suggests straight away. A man… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true… — 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
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
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention - on… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Machines have no political opinions, but they have profound political effects. They demand a strict regimentation of time, and, by abolishing the… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
The masculine imagination lives in a state of perpetual revolt against the limitations of human life. In theological terms, one might say… — 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
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
Christ did not enchant men; He demanded that they believe in Him: except on one occasion, the Transfiguration. For a brief while,… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Man desires to be free and he desires to feel important. This places him in a dilemma, for the more he emancipates… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
It is nonsense to speak of 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures. To a hungry man it is, rightly, more important that he eat… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
I see little hope for a peaceful world until men are excluded from the realm of foreign policy altogether and all decisions… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
A man has his distinctive personal scent which his wife, his children and his dog can recognize. A crowd has a generalized… — 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
In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means;… — 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 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
America has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a… — 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
A doctor, like anyone else who has to deal with human beings, each of them unique, cannot be a scientist; he 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
