217 quotes
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse.
Another Time (1940)
The stars are dead. The animals will not look.
We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and
History to the defeated
May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.
Spain (1937)
"Healing,"
Papa would tell me,
"is not a science,
but the intuitive art
of wooing Nature."
Epistle to a Godson, and Other Poems (1972)
Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at
New styles of architecture, a change of heart.
Poems (1933)
Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods.
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table.
Another Time (1940)
Sob, heavy world,
Sob as you spin
Mantled in mist, remote from the happy.
The Age of Anxiety (1948)
Thoughts of his own death,
like the distant roll
of thunder at a picnic.
City Without Walls, and Other Poems (1969)
Americans—like omelets:
there is no such thing
as a pretty good one.
City Without Walls, and Other Poems (1969)
There is no love;
There are only the various envies, all of them sad.
Nones (1951)
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
Another Time (1940)
Good can imagine Evil, but Evil cannot imagine Good.
A Certain World (1970)
Sexual fidelity is more important in a homosexual relationship than in any other. In other relationships there are a variety of ties. But here, fidelity is the only bond.
The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (1991)
Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
The law cannot forgive, for the law has not been wronged, only broken; only persons can be wronged. The law can pardon, but it can only pardon what it has the power to punish.
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
When a just man dies,
Lamentation and praise,
Sorrow and joy, are one.
My head looks like an egg upon a plate,
My nose is not too bad, but isn’t straight;
I have no proper eyebrows, and my eyes
Are far too close together to look nice.
Letters from Iceland (1937)
Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
I may want to sleep with Miss America, but I have no wish to hear her talk about herself and her family.
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)
All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: "I refuse to be what I am."
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)