World Quotes by W. H. Auden

10 World quotes by W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden’s poetry often balances the personal with the universal, and here he offers ten short pieces on the World. The verses pack his lyrical precision into a compact form, inviting a quick dive into his timeless perspective.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

To save your world you asked this man to die; would this man, could he see you now, ask why?

W. H. Auden

Image

Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.

W. H. Auden

Image

Our claim to our own bodies and our world is our catastrophe.

W. H. Auden

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

Image

Thou shalt not answer questionnaires Or quizzes upon world affairs, Nor with compliance Take any test. Thou shalt not sit with statisticians…

W. H. Auden

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

Image

In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a…

W. H. Auden

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

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

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

Image

Other authors on World

More by W. H. Auden

Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.

W. H. Auden

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

Image

The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience.

W. H. Auden

Image

Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.

W. H. Auden

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

Image

Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores.

W. H. Auden

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

Image

“Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return”

W. H. Auden

Image

I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.

W. H. Auden

Image

One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell.

W. H. Auden

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

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

Image

The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the…

W. H. Auden

Image

Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral

W. H. Auden

Image

To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.

W. H. Auden

Image