451 Quotes by W.H. Auden

Let all your thinks be thanks.

Sexual fidelity is more important in a homosexual relationship than in any other. In other relationships there are a variety of ties. But here, fidelity is the only bond.

Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.

No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.

It is 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.

To have a sense of sin means to feel guilty at there being an ethical choice to make, a guilt which, however “good” I may become, remains unchanged.

A poet’s hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.

One can only blaspheme if one believes.

I’m always amazed at the American practice of allowing one party to a homosexual act to remain passive – it’s so undemocratic. Sexmust be mutual.