Quotes from W.H. Auden

where to all species except the talkative have been allotted the niche and diet that become them. This, whatever micro- biology may think, is the world we really live in and that saves our sanity, who know all too well how the most erudite mind behaves in the dark without a surround it is called on to interpret, how, discarding rhythm, punctuation, metaphor, it sinks into a driveling monologue, too literal to see a joke or distinguish a penis from a pencil.

The great vice of our age […] is that we are all not only 'actors' but know that we are ('reduplicated Hamlets'), and that it is only at moments, in spite of ourselves, and when we least expect it, that our real feelings break through.

You shall love your crooked neighbour with your crooked heart.

As mile by mile is seen No trespasser's reproach, And love's best glasses reach No fields but are his own.

From Archaeology one moral, at least, may be drawn, to wit, that all our school text-books lie. What they call History is nothing to vaunt of,' being made, as it is, by the criminal in us: goodness is timeless.

England,' 'La France,' 'Das Reich;' their words Are like the names of extinct birds Or peasant-women's quaint old charms For bringing lovers to their arms, Which would be only pretty save That they bring thousands to their grave.

One of the best reasons I have for knowing That Fascism is bogus is that it is too much like the kinds of Utopias artists plan over cafe tables very late at night.

America has many faults, one of the worst being that Americans always want answers to everything, and when you tell them there aren't any, are very upset. But when they are in a tough spot they do look forward...

Animal femurs ascribed to saints who never existed, are still *** more holy than portraits of conquerors who, unfortunately, did

It is through you that God has chosen to show me my beatitude.

Two hundred years from now nobody will care much about our politics. But if we were truly moved by the things that happened to us, they may read our poems.

The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us. I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient: I hope not. I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive, which is why, perhaps, all totalitarian theories of the State, from Plato's downwards, have deeply mistrusted the arts. They notice and say too much, and the neighbors start talking.

The Vision of Eros is, in my opinion, a religious vision. It is an indirect manifestation of the glory of the personal creator through a personal creature.

To God, the right kind of human life looks well-meant but incompetent. Zeal is more important than technique.

The public will stand, nay even enjoy, a good deal of poetry.

Dear little not-so-innocents, beware of Old Grandmother Spider: rump her endearments – She's not quite as nice as She looks, nor you quite as tough as you think.

Education, all smoothly say, is the production of useful citizens. But, good God, what on earth is a useful citizen just now?

If I were asked to name people whom I considered true Christians, the name 'George Orwell' is one of the first that would come to my mind.

My name on the title-page seems a pseudonym for someone else, someone talented but near the border of sanity...

Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.

O how I wish Orwell were still alive, so that I could read his comments on contemporary events. [...] What would he say about hippie communes, student demonstrations, drugs, trades unions? Would he still be as hopeful about the social benefits of nationalised industries? Would he still call for a higher birth-rate? What he would say, I have no idea: I am only certain that he would be worth listening to.

In the burrows of the Nightmare Where Justice naked is, Time watches from the shadow And coughs when you would kiss. 'In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or to-day.

The songs celebrates the order of the nature. When the scene is nice, the emotion are nasty, when the scene is nasty, the emotion are nice.

Dog bites man is not interesting, man bites dog is.