457 Quotes by W. H. Auden

for once in our lives / Everything became a You and nothing was an It.

The mass and majesty of this world, allThat carries weight and always weighs the sameLay in the hands of others; they were smallAnd could not hope for help and no help came:What their foes like to do was done, their shameWas all the worst could wish; they lost their prideAnd died as men before their bodies died.

Looking up at the stars, I know quite wellThat, for all they care, I can go to hell,But on earth indifference is the leastWe have to dread from man or beast.

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

Thoughts on his own death, like the distant roll of thunder at a picnic.

Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.

For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle.

The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor, simply because major poets write a lot.