The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
It's usually the stupid people that develop long illnesses. You need more than indolence and selfishness, you need endurance to make a… — 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
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
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
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
You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes:… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
But he would have us most of all remember to be enthusiastic over the night. Not only for the sense of wonder… — 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
