W. H. Auden Quotes
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To save your world you asked this man to die; would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
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In all technologically 'advanced' countries, fashion has replaced tradition, so that involuntary membership in a society can no longer provide a feeling of community.
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No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called Games.
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A crowd of ordinary decent folk Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke As three pale figures were led forth and bound To three posts driven upright in the ground.
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Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth.
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You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.
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A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.
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Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
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Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession.
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The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods; For nothing now can ever come to any good.
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August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier.
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Young people, who are still uncertain of their identity, often try on a succession of masks in the hope of finding the one which suits them - the one, in fact, which is not a mask.
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He was my North, my South, my East and West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
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We would rather be ruined than changed We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die.
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Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.
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Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say.
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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.
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Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one.
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Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last; Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on.
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A million eyes, a million boots in line, Without expression, waiting for a sign.
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One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell.
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It's a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
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They never forgot That even the most dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
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All pity is self-pity.