Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm. W. H. Auden More Quotes by W. H. Auden More Quotes From W. H. Auden Political history is far too criminal to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villians from fiction. W. H. Auden hero history children Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead. W. H. Auden breaking-silence mean art Goodness is easier to recognize than to define. W. H. Auden easier goodness relationship History marched to the drums of a clear idea... W. H. Auden march clear ideas 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 race have-faith may 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 helping-others earth men Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same time prevented from ever clashing. W. H. Auden government choices mean A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true. W. H. Auden poetry writing believe What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one's gifts? W. H. Auden should answers exercise To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith W. H. Auden difficult faith easy The most difficult problem in personal knowledge, whether of oneself or of others, is the problem of guessing when to think as a historian and when to think as an anthropologist. W. H. Auden personal-knowledge guessing thinking Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation. W. H. Auden separation theory practice Cathedrals, luxury liners laden with souls, Holding to the east their hulls of stone. W. H. Auden hull luxury soul To be happy means to be free, not from pain or fear, but from care or anxiety. W. H. Auden anxiety pain mean If it really was Queen Elizabeth who demanded to see Falstaff in a comedy, then she showed herself a very perceptive critic. But even in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff has not and could not have found his true home because Shakespeare was only a poet. For that he was to wait nearly two hundred years till Verdi wrote his last opera. Falstaff is not the only case of a character whose true home is the world of music; others are Tristan, Isolde and Don Giovanni. W. H. Auden queens home character Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays; By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems. W. H. Auden mourning tongue rivers Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be. W. H. Auden choices attention men There are three cardinal rules - don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a drink without being asked, and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters. W. H. Auden funny-business three matter There is a great deal of difference in believing something still, and believing it again. W. H. Auden deals differences believe Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell. W. H. Auden invisible smell doe
