“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
Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable. — 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
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
It has been said that a poem should not mean but be. This is not quite accurate. In a poem, as distinct… — 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
It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art… — 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
Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
God may reduce you on Judgment Day to tears of shame, reciting by heart the poems you would have written, had your… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Earth, receive an honored guest; William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
A poet feels the impulse to create a work of art when the passive awe provoked by an event is transformed into… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
“for once in our lives / Everything became a You and nothing was an It.” — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true. — 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
