No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him. W H Auden
A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over. W H Auden
When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing-room full of dukes. W H Auden
A professor is one who talks in someone else’s sleep. W H Auden
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh. W H Auden
To the man-in-the-street, who, I’m sorry to say
Is a keen observer of life,
The word intellectual suggests straight away
A man who’s untrue to his wife.
W H Auden
We are here on Earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don’t know. W H Auden
Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality. W H Auden
A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. W H Auden
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. W H Auden
Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about. WH Auden
All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation. W H Auden
Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation. W H Auden
Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say. W H Auden
Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self. W. H. Auden
What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish. W H Auden
A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it. W H Auden
Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods. W H Auden
One can only blaspheme if one believes. W H Auden
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. W H Auden
W H Auden Quotes
In most poetic expressions of patriotism, it is impossible to distinguish what is one of the greatest human virtues from the worst human vice, collective egotism. W H Auden
Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession. W H Auden
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. W H Auden
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. W H Auden
Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity. W H Auden
No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. W H Auden
A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence. W H Auden
A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish. W H Auden
A vice in common can be the ground of a friendship but not a virtue in common. X and Y may be friends because they are both drunkards or womanizers but, if they are both sober and chaste, they are friends for some other reason. W H Auden
He suffers from one great literary defect, which is often found in lonely geniuses: he never knows when to stop. Lonely people are apt to fall in love with the sound of their own voice, as Narcissus fell in love with his reflection, not out of conceit but out of despair of finding another who will listen and respond. W H Auden
All pity is self-pity. W H Auden
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. W H Auden
You will be a poet because you will always be humiliated. 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
Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science.
W H Auden
Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table. W H Auden
Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered. W H Auden
A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us. W H Auden
The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me. W H Auden
The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident. W H Auden