“Truth, like love and sleep, resents approaches that are too intense.” — W. H. Auden Intense Copy Share Image
Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
To be happy means to be free, not from pain or fear, but from care or anxiety. — W. H. Auden Anxiety Copy Share Image
Cats can be very funny, and have the oddest ways of showing they're glad to see you... — W. H. Auden Cat Copy Share Image
Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup. — W. H. Auden Art Copy Share Image
What is a Professor of Poetry? How can poetry be professed? — W. H. Auden Inspirational Copy Share Image
“No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.” — W. H. Auden Opera Copy Share Image
Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist; Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you've… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them. — W. H. Auden Books Copy Share Image
If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away. — W. H. Auden Gun Copy Share Image
All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our… — W. H. Auden Art Copy Share Image
Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair, Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem From insignificance. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he'll escape. — W. H. Auden Ballet Copy Share Image
It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe… — W. H. Auden Art Copy Share Image
Accurate scholarship can unearth the whole offence from luther untill noe that has driven a culture mad. From what occured at linz… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim… — W. H. Auden Atonement 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
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 Decision 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
My poetry doesn't change from place to place - it changes with the years. It's very important to be one's age. You… — W. H. Auden Age Copy Share Image
There are three cardinal rules - don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a… — 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
Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention - on… — W. H. Auden Attention Copy Share Image
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace,… — W. H. Auden Absurd 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 Audience 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
At first critics classified authors as Ancients, that is to say, Greek and Latin authors, and Moderns, that is to say, every… — W. H. Auden Automobile Copy Share Image
The belief that politics can be scientific must inevitably produce tyrannies. Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice… — W. H. Auden Belief Copy Share Image
![“It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will.” quote by W. H. Auden](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2ed/w-h-auden-856_art_it-s-impossible-to-represent-a-saint-in_1665725.png)
