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Quotes from The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays — W. H. Auden

1907–1973 England

← All quotes by W. H. Auden

44 quotes

Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

In general, when reading a scholarly critic, one profits more from his quotations than from his comments.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

When one looks into the window of a store which sells devotional art objects, one can't help wishing the iconoclasts had won.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

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)

"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)

Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

The detective must be either the official representative of the ethical or the exceptional individual who is in a state of grace.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

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)

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)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: W. H. Auden (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.