Quotes from W.H. Auden

Instead of Gnostics, we have Existentialists and God-is-dead theologians, instead of Neo-Platonists, devotees of Zen, instead of desert hermits, heroin addicts and Beats (who also, oddly enough, seem averse to washing), instead of mortification of the flesh, sado-masochistic pornography; as for our public entertainments, the fare offered by television is still a shade less brutal than that provided by the Amphitheatre, but only a shade and may not be so for long.

Stagger onward rejoicing; And even then if, perhaps Having actually got To the last col, you collapse With all Atlantis shining Below you yet you cannot Descend, you should still be proud Even to have been allowed Just to peep at Atlantis In a poetic vision: Give thanks and lie down in peace, Having seen your salvation.

If people marry on the assumption that love must always overcome obstacles, they will either become unfaithful or they will make things difficult. The better you know someone, the better you can torture him: man and wife become each other's devils.

Any society is in danger of dismissing the virtue of another society because of its vices, and a democracy is always in danger of not paying enough attention to manners and forms.

but when I try to imagine a faultless love, Or the life to come, what I hear is the murmur Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape.

In a tragic contradiction between the normal and the exceptional, there is suffering, in a comic contradiction, none.

Enormous novels by co-eds. Rain down on our defenceless heads. Till our teeth chatter.

For love: a poet. For romance: a journalist.

Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full strength of Collective Man.

Every eye must weep alone Till I Will be overthrown But I Will can be removed, Not having sese enough to gaurd against I Know, But I Will can be removed. Then all I's can meet and grow, I am become I Love, I Have Not I Am Loved Then all I's can meet and grow,. Till I Will be overthrown Every eye must weep alone.

The stars are dead. The animals will not look. We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.

will it come like a change in the weather? Will its greeting be courteous or rough? Will it alter my like altogether? O tell me the truth about love

He still loves life But O O O O how he wishes The good Lord would take him.

Does this current deterioration and corruption of language, imprecision of thought, and so forth scare you—or is it just a decadent phase? AUDEN It terrifies me. I try by my personal example to fight it; as I say, it's a poet's role to maintain the sacredness of language.

Only as I am, can I love you as you are

How much must be forgotten out of love, How much must be forgiven, even love.

For poetry makes nothing happen.

Time, that is intolerant Of the brave and innocent, And indifferent in a week To a beautiful physique, Worships language, and forgives Everyone by whom it lives; Pardons cowardice, conceit, Lays its honours at his feet. Time, that with this strange excuse, Pardons Kipling and his views, And will pardon Paul Claudel, Pardons him for writing well.

Protect his house, His anxious house where days are counted From thunderbolt protect, From gradual ruin spreading like a stain; Converting number from vague to certain, Bring joy, bring day of his returning, Lucky with day approaching, with leaning dawn.

He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

When a reviewer describes a book as 'sincere,' one knows immediately that it is a) insincere (insincerely insincere) and b) badly written.

Will you wheel death anywhere In his invalid chair, With no affectionate instant But his his attendant? For to be held for friend By an underdeveloped mind To be joke for children is Death's happiness: Whose anecdotes betray His favourite colour as blue Colour of distant bells And boys' overalls.

Il mare è in effetti quel barbarico stato di indistinzione e disordine da cui è emersa la civiltà e nel quale è sempre possibile che essa ricada, ove non venga salvata dagli sforzi degli dèi e degli uomini. (Gl'irati flutti)

It is time for the destruction of error.