Quotessence
Home / Authors / W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden Quotes

Poet

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsPoetArtKnowsWritingPeopleShouldMayHumansLoveThinkingWorldDoeFeelsBelieveChildrenHeartPersonsBook

Famous W. H. Auden Quotes

“An honest self-portrait is extremely rare because a man who has reached the degree of self-consciousness presupposed by the desire to paint his own portrait has almost always also developed an ego-consciousness which paints himself painting himself, and introduces artificial highlights and dramatic shadows.”

MenSelfDesireConsciousnessHonestPaintingEgoDegreesShadowPaintDramaticArtificialIntroducingPortraitsHighlightsSelf ConsciousnessSelf Portrait
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me. Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day. Were all stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime, Though this might take me a little time.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMenGivingFeelsShouldWellsLooksLittlesI CanMightCareEarthDiesPassionStarsDarkHellSkyReturnEqualEmptyAffectionDisappearDamnIndifferenceBeastTake MeDreadSublimeLittle TimeGo To HellAdmirerAll StarsMissed Ones
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“Machines have no political opinions, but they have profound political effects. They demand a strict regimentation of time, and, by abolishing the need for manual skill, have transformed the majority of the population from workers into laborers. There are, that is to say, fewer and fewer jobs which a man can find a pride and satisfaction in doing well, more and more which have no interest in themselves and can be valued only for the money they provide.”

MenNeedsWellsJobsPoliticalInterestOpinionEffectsPrideSkillsDemandMachinesMajorityProfoundWorkersPopulationSatisfactionFewerTransformedStrictManualsLaborersPolitical OpinionsRegimentation
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; whatfrom the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer.”

IfsMenMayDoePlayJobsIndividualDifferencesWorkViewsPayExampleDependsTasteLaborWorkersPoint Of ViewGardenerManualsClerksLaborersCobblers
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“If we apply the term revolution to what happened in North America between 1776 and 1829, it has a special meaning. Normally, the word describes the process by which man transforms himself from one kind of man, living in one kind of society, with one way of looking at the world, into another kind of man, another society, another conception of life.... The American case is different: it is not a question of the Old Man transforming himself into the New, but of the New Man becoming alive to the fact that he is new, that he has been transformed already without his having realized it.”

IfsMenWorldWayKindHas BeensDifferentFactsAmericaProcessTermCasesAliveHappenedSpecialRevolutionBecomingOne WayOld ManConceptionTransformedTransformingNorth America
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“Most poetry is the utterance of a man in some state of passion, love, joy, grief, rage, etc., and no doubt this is as it should be. But no man is perpetually in a passion and those states in which he is amused and amusing, detached and irreverent, if less important, are no less amusing. If there were no poets who, like Byron, express these states, Poetry would lack something.”

IfsMenShouldImportantStatesJoyPassionGriefDoubtPoetRageNo DoubtEtcPoetry IsAmusingDetachedAmusedUtteranceLove PassionByronIrreverent
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“The ideal audience the poet imagines consists of the beautiful who go to bed with him, the powerful who invite him to dinner and tell him secrets of state, and his fellow-poets. The actual audience he gets consists of myopic schoolteachers, pimply young men who eat in cafeterias, and his fellow-poets. This means, in fact, he writes for his fellow-poets.”

MenWritingMeanStatesFactsBeautifulYoungPowerfulSecretAudienceImaginePoetBedIdealsFellowsDinnerYoung ManInvitesCafeteriaMyopic
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.”

MenHumansHeartStillsNightVoiceHealingTeachPoetPraisePrisonBottomDesertCurseRejoiceVersesDistressFountainFarmingFree ManRaptureVineyards
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“The true men of action in our time those who transform the world are not the politicians and statesmen but the scientists. Unfortunately poetry cannot celebrate them because their deeds are concerned with things, not persons, and are therefore speechless. When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.”

MenWorldFeelsPersonsArtActionScienceRoomsMistakeCompanyPoliticianConcernedScientistDeedsDrawingCelebrateOur TimeStatesmenDukesTrue ManSpeechlessShabby
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“A doctor, like anyone else who has to deal with human beings, each of them unique, cannot be a scientist; he is either, like the surgeon, a craftsman, or, like the physician and the psychologist, an artist. This means that in order to be a good doctor a man must also have a good character, that is to say, whatever weaknesses and foibles he may have, he must love his fellow human beings in the concrete and desire their good before his own.”

MenLoveHumansMayMeanCharacterDesireArtistOrderHuman BeingsDealsUniqueWeaknessDoctorsScientistFellowsGoodConcretePhysiciansPsychologistSurgeonsCaring For OthersGood CharacterCraftsmanFoiblesIndividual DifferencesGood DoctorsDoctoring
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention - on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God - that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying. The primary task of the schoolteacher is to teach children, in a secular context, the technique of prayer.”

MenChildrenGodProblemDesirePrayerForgetPayAttentionTeachPrayingEgoTasksOneselfTechniquePrimariesLandscapePay AttentionIdolsSecularTrue God
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“Drama is based on the Mistake. I think someone is my friend when he really is my enemy, that I am free to marry a woman when in fact she is my mother, that this person is a chambermaid when it is a young nobleman in disguise, that this well-dressed young man is rich when he is really a penniless adventurer, or that if I do this such and such a result will follow when in fact it results in something very different. All good drama has two movements, first the making of the mistake, then the discovery that it was a mistake.”

IfsThinkingMenFirstsWellsPersonsTwoDifferentFactsYoungMotherResultsMistakeEnemyRichMovementDramaDiscoveryMy FriendsTheaterTheatreYoung ManDisguiseAdventurerWell DressedNoblemenGood Drama
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image