W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Audenwas an English poet, who later became an American citizen. He is best known for love poems such as "Funeral Blues," poems on political and social themes such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles," poems on cultural and psychological themes such as The Age of Anxiety, and poems on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae." He was born in York, grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth21 February 1907
expression feelings might
Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.
people negative bad-people
Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say
thinking thanks
Let all your thinks be thanks.
music art philosophy
Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
art nature get-well
'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'
cities soul holes
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.
reason
Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.
finding-the-one people trying
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.
smell sight people
Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.
music beautiful simple
The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.
america scary too-much
It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too much. I can see myself doing it. In England, one feels all the social restraints holding one back. But here, anything can happen.
respect civilization diversity
Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
work thinking order
In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it: they must not do too much of it: and they must have a sense of success in it - not a doubtful sense, such as needs some testimony of others for its confirmation, but a sure sense, or rather knowledge, that so much work has been done well, and fruitfully done, whatever the world may say or think about it.