Our claim to our own bodies and our world is our catastrophe. W. H. Auden More Quotes by W. H. Auden More Quotes From W. H. Auden We do not change as we grow up. The difference between the child and the adult is that the former doesn't know who he is and the latter does. W. H. Auden growing-up learning children 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 valentines-day rivers love History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology. W. H. Auden study answers history There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye. W. H. Auden more-than-meets-the-eye eye stories Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before. W. H. Auden language mother writing You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at. W. H. Auden stewardship To be free is often to be lonely. W. H. Auden lonely In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet; the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever. W. H. Auden eye writing men No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called Games. W. H. Auden playing-games innocence class Music is the best means we have of digesting time. W. H. Auden music philosophy art You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart. W. H. Auden neighbour crooked heart Let all your thinks be thanks. W. H. Auden thanks thinking 'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.' W. H. Auden get-well nature art A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do. W. H. Auden work men thinking Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do. W. H. Auden genius want inspirational The masculine imagination lives in a state of perpetual revolt against the limitations of human life. In theological terms, one might say that all men, left to themselves, become gnostics. They may swagger like peacocks, but in their heart of hearts they all think sex an indignity and wish they could beget themselves on themselves. Hence the aggressive hostility toward women so manifest in most club-car stories. W. H. Auden heart men sex A person incapable of imaging another world than given to him by his senses would be subhuman, and a person who identifies his imaginary world with the world of sensory fact has become insane. W. H. Auden insane would-be facts He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. W. H. Auden song love death In the deserts of the heart W. H. Auden healing heart relaxation Why doesn't the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the more they will dwindle. At least you could use it for a summer resort instead of Maine. W. H. Auden important waiting summer
