Famous WH Auden Quotes

  • Soft as the earth is mankind and both need to be altered. – WH Auden

    Soft as the earth is mankind and both need to be altered.– WH Auden

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

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

  • I write because I love to play with language. – WH Auden

    I write because I love to play with language.– WH Auden

  • He who despises himself, nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser. (Nietz – WH Auden

    He who despises himself, nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser. (Nietz– WH Auden

  • A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us. – WH Auden

    A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us. – WH Auden

  • Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession. – WH Auden

    Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession.– WH Auden

  • And maps can really point to placesWhere life is evil now:Nanking. Dachau. – WH Auden

    And maps can really point to placesWhere life is evil now:Nanking. Dachau.– WH Auden

  • The enlightenment driven away,The habit-forming pain,Mismanagement and grief:We must suffer them all again. – WH Auden

    The enlightenment driven away,The habit-forming pain,Mismanagement and grief:We must suffer them all again.– WH Auden

  • Evil is unspectacular and always human,And shares our bed and eats at our own table …. – WH Auden

    Evil is unspectacular and always human,And shares our bed and eats at our own table ….– WH Auden

  • I know nothing, except what everyone knows – if there when Grace dances, I should dance. – WH Auden

    I know nothing, except what everyone knows – if there when Grace dances, I should dance.– WH Auden