W. H. Auden Quotes

Over the heather the west wind blows,I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose.The rain comes pattering out of the sky,I'm a Wall soldier and I don't know why.

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I cannot accept the doctrine that in poetry there is a suspension of belief. A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting he must also believe it to be true.

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There is a certain kind of person who is so dominated by the desire to be loved for himself alone that he has constantly to test those around him by tiresome behavior what he says and does must be admired . . .

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Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,For poetry makes nothing happen.

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Look, stranger, at this island nowThe leaping light for your delight discovers.

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Lay your sleeping head, my love,Human on my faithless arm.

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To ask the hard question is simple.

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The words of a dead manAre modified in the guts of the living.

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

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Private faces in public placesAre wiser and nicerThan public faces in private places.

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Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say Sanctity is the state about which theology has nothing to say.

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Dogmatic theological statements are neither logical propositions nor poetic utterances. They are shaggy dog stories they have a point, but he who tries too hard to get it will miss it.

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When I try to imagine a faultless loveOr the life to come, what I hear is the murmurOf underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape.

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Our researchers into Public Opinion are contentThat he held the proper opinions for the time of yearWhen there was peace, he was for peace when there was war, he went.

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Intellectual disgraceStares from every human face,And the seas of pity lieLocked and frozen in each eye.

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A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.

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Harrow the house of the dead look shining atNew styles of architecture, a change of heart.

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To us he is no more a personNow but a climate of opinionUnder whom we conduct our differing lives.

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To save your world you asked this man to dieWould this man, could he see you now, ask why

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Five minutes on even the nicest mountainIs awfully long.

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Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.

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To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to sayIs a keen observer of life,The word Intellectual suggests straight awayA man who's untrue to his wife.

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Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.

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God bless the USA, so large,So friendly, and so rich.

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How happy the lot of the mathematician He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve.

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