All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation. — W. H. Auden Addiction Copy Share Image
Private faces in public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces in private places. — W. H. Auden Faces Copy Share Image
Without communication with the dead, a fully human life is not possible. — W. H. Auden Communication Copy Share Image
Human language is mythological and metaphorical by nature. — W. H. Auden Human language Copy Share Image
Encased in talent like a uniform, The rank of every poet is well known; They can amaze us like a thunderstorm, Or… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
It is nonsense to speak of 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures. To a hungry man it is, rightly, more important that he eat… — W. H. Auden Food Copy Share Image
The definition of prayer is paying careful and concentrated attention to something other than your own constructions. — W. H. Auden Attention Copy Share Image
The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of… — W. H. Auden Child Copy Share Image
The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor, simply… — W. H. Auden Chance Copy Share Image
I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
To me Art's subject is the human clay, / And landscape but a background to a torso; / All Cezanne's apples I… — W. H. Auden Apples Copy Share Image
The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
“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 Craftsmanship Copy Share Image
America has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a… — W. H. Auden Amateurs Copy Share Image
Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the… — W. H. Auden Age Copy Share Image
As biological organisms made of matter, we are subject to the laws of physics and biology: as conscious persons who create our… — W. H. Auden Art Copy Share Image
About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; How well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone… — W. H. Auden Eating Copy Share Image
We who must die demand a miracle. How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become a finite fact? Nothing… — W. H. Auden Demand 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… — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes:… — W. H. Auden Beautiful Copy Share Image
Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
We honor founders of these starving cities, Whose honor is the image of our sorrow. — W. H. Auden Cities Copy Share Image
It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly. — W. H. Auden Criticism Copy Share Image
Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. — W. H. Auden Children Copy Share Image
