451 Quotes by W.H. Auden

One of the troubles of our times is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters.

Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.

The lights must never go out, The music must always play.

Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.

You owe it to all of us all get on with what you’re good at.

The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.

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.

The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again.

God is Love, we are taught as children to believe. But when we first begin to get some inkling of how He loves us, we are repelled; it seems so cold, indeed, not love at all as we understand the word.