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From Quotes by Wystan Hugh Auden
- Learn from your dreams what you lack.
- Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.
- Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master's commands…
- There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, ''Did you get an erection?'' If…
- Man desires to be free and he desires to feel important. This places him in a dilemma, for the more he emancipates himself from necessity…
- Christ did not enchant men; He demanded that they believe in Him: except on one occasion, the Transfiguration. For a brief while, Peter, James, and…
- My poetry doesn't change from place to place - it changes with the years. It's very important to be one's age. You get ideas you…
- Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity.
- Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring…
- By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
- As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.
- Clear, unscaleable ahead, Rise the mountains of instead From whose cold, cascading streams None may drink except in dreams
- The Ogre does what ogres can, Deeds quite impossible for Man, But one prize is beyond his reach: The Ogre cannot master speech. About a…
- The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the…
- In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster, the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But…
- Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were.
- Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only…
- Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays; By mourning tongues The…
- The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal…
- People always get what they want. But there is a price for everything. Failures are either those who do not know what they want or…
- Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood; But noble platitudes — ah, there's a case Where…
- Political history is far too criminal to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villians from fiction.
More From Quotes
- Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise. — Hannah Arendt
- By its very nature the beautiful is isolated from everything else. From beauty no road leads to reality. — Hannah Arendt
- No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has… — Hannah Arendt
- Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in… — Hannah Arendt
- Aside from a handful of guys boxing is missing the good trainers, that's why our sport is so in the air now… — Alexis Arguello
- From heresy, frenzy and jealousy, good Lord deliver me. — Ludovico Ariosto
- As far as we are concerned, we are ready to leave today, tomorrow, at any time, to join the people of Haiti,… — Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- Haiti, Haiti, the further I am from you, the less I breathe. Haiti, I love you, and I will love you always.… — Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- In 1994, when I went back to Haiti from exile, we established a Commission for Truth and Justice and Reconciliation. I passed… — Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- Sometimes people who want to understand Haiti from a political perspective may be missing part of the picture. They also need to… — Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of… — Aristophanes
- At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst. — Aristotle