217 quotes
Propaganda is a monologue that is not looking for an answer, but an echo.
All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality in a statesman.
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Another Time (1940)
I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.
The Art of Poetry No. 17 (1972)
The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.
A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.
"The unacknowledged legislators of the world" describes the secret police, not the poets.
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called Games.
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.
Another Time (1940)
A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)
Each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom.
Another Time (1940)
A shilling life will give you all the facts.
Look, Stranger! (1936) · On This Island (1937)
Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he'll escape.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
The expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Another Time (1940)
The sky is darkening like a stain,
Something is going to fall like rain
And it won't be flowers.
Acts of injustice done
Between the setting and the rising sun
In history lie like bones, each one.
The Ascent of F6 (1936)
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Another Time (1940)