The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
the child unlucky in his little State, Some hearth where freedom is excluded, A hive whose honey is fear and worry, Feels… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is therefore not at all a desirable… — 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… — 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
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 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
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
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
