W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Audenwas an English poet, who later became an American citizen. He is best known for love poems such as "Funeral Blues," poems on political and social themes such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles," poems on cultural and psychological themes such as The Age of Anxiety, and poems on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae." He was born in York, grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth21 February 1907
W. H. Auden quotes about
english-poet
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
doe torture no-nonsense
Of course,Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture.
hope food cooking
A poet's hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.
reason
Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.
smell sight people
Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.
fate puppets chance
Every high C accurately struck demolishes the theory that we are the irresponsible puppets of fate or chance.
smell doe invisible
Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.
iceland people passionate
Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate.
finding-the-one people trying
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.
funny music people
No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
unique men mirrors
Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.
inspirational funny helping-others
We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know.
medicine medical states
Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say.
marriage interesting romance
Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate.