And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom. - W.H. Auden
Small tyrants, threatened by big,sincerely believethey love liberty. - W.H. Auden
Always the following wind of historyOf others' wisdom makes a buoyant airTill we come suddenly on pockets where Is nothing loud but us; where voices seemAbrupt, untrained, competing with no lieOur fathers shouted once. - W.H. Auden
Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society must take the place of the victim, and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness. - W.H. Auden
To save your world, you asked this man to die:Would this man, could he see you now, asked why? - W.H. Auden
I will love you forever" swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. "I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday" - Is that still as easy? - W.H. Auden
And maps can really point to placesWhere life is evil now:Nanking. Dachau. - W.H. Auden
All we are not stares back at what we are. - W.H. Auden
To make one, there must be two. - W.H. Auden
Poetry makes nothing happen. - W.H. Auden
The element of craftsmanship in poetry is obscured by the fact that all men are taught to speak and most to read and write, while very few men are taught to draw or paint or write music. - W.H. Auden
All time spent reading is time well-spent. - W.H. Auden
We must love one another or die - W.H. Auden
If equal affection cannot be,Let the more loving one be me. - W.H. Auden
To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally. - W.H. Auden
Hunger allows no choiceTo the citizen or the police;We must love one another or die. - W.H. Auden
When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.from an essay for Writers by Nancy Crampton - W.H. Auden
I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen. - W.H. Auden
In the prison of his daysTeach the free man how to praise - W.H. Auden
Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about. - W.H. Auden
A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us. - W.H. Auden
Say this city has ten million souls,Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us. - W.H. Auden
We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and see our illusions die. - W.H. Auden
There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love. - W.H. Auden
Moreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses have no right whatsoever to resist them. - W.H. Auden
Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. - W.H. Auden
No poet or novelist wishes he was the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number believe their wish has been granted. - W.H. Auden
Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another. - W.H. Auden
The identification of fantasy is always an attempt to avoid one's own suffering: the identification of art is the sharing in the suffering of another. - W.H. Auden
You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart. - W.H. Auden
Truth, like love and sleep, resents approaches that are too intense. - W.H. Auden
Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs. - W.H. Auden
The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews. - W.H. Auden
The friends who met here and embraced are gone,Each to his own mistake; - W.H. Auden
There are good books which are only for adults.There are no good books which are only for children. - W.H. Auden
Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before. - W.H. Auden
Some thirty inches from my noseThe frontier of my Person goes,And all the untilled air betweenIs private pagus or demesne.Stranger, unless with bedroom eyesI beckon you to fraternize,Beware of rudely crossing it:I have no gun, but I can spit. - W.H. Auden