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
One of the troubles of our times is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
It is axiomatic that we should all think of ourselves as being more sensitive than other people because, when we are insensitive… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation. — 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
The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey… — 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
The most difficult problem in personal knowledge, whether of oneself or of others, is the problem of guessing when to think as… — 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
