W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden

31 quotes

W. H. Auden is a British -American poet whose words have traveled far beyond their original audience. Celebrated for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content, W. H. Auden brought that same intensity to the written and spoken word. 48 of W. H. Auden's sharpest quotes live here, spanning themes of Art, Poetry, Music, Money, and Love. One quote that captures their voice: "A verbal art like poetry is reflective it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become."

“Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.”

— W. H. Auden

Art

All Quotes by W. H. Auden

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

— W. H. Auden

Travel

“I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.”

— W. H. Auden

Love

“The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.”

— W. H. Auden

Death

“Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate.”

— W. H. Auden

Marriage

“Learn from your dreams what you lack.”

— W. H. Auden

Dreams

“Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.”

— W. H. Auden

Art

“When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.”

— W. H. Auden

Science

“Now is the age of anxiety.”

— W. H. Auden

Age

“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

Relationship

“Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.”

— W. H. Auden

Death

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

— W. H. Auden

History

“May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that 'faith' is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?”

— W. H. Auden

Faith

“'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'”

— W. H. Auden

Art

“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

Love

“It's a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.”

— W. H. Auden

Art

“Art is born of humiliation.”

— W. H. Auden

Art

“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”

— W. H. Auden

Love

“Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.”

— W. H. Auden

Music

“A verbal art like poetry is reflective it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.”

— W. H. Auden

Art

“Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say.”

— W. H. Auden

Health