W. H. Auden Quotes and Quotation

• "Minus times minus is plus, the reason for this we need not discuss"
  • Source: (quoted in Mathematics: The loss of certainty by M. Kline (1980) Oxford University Press., p. 115).

• Base words are uttered only by the base
  And can for such at once be understood;
  But noble platitudes - ah, there's a case
  Where the most careful scrutiny is needed
  To tell a voice that's genuinely good
  From one that's base but merely has succeeded.
  • "Base Words are Uttered"

from the poem entitled September 1, 1939

• "I sit in one of the dives
  On Fifty-second Street
  Uncertain and afraid
  As the clever hopes expire
  Of a low dishonest decade:
  Waves of anger and fear
  Circulate over the bright
  And darkened lands of the earth,
  Obsessing our private lives;
  The unmentionable odour of death
  Offends the September night."

• "Into this neutral air
  Where blind skyscrapers use
  Their full height to proclaim
  The strength of Collective Man,
  Each language pours its vain
  Competitive excuse…"

• "The windiest militant trash
  Important Persons shout
  Is not so crude as our wish:
  …
  For the error bred in the bone
  Of each woman and each man
  Craves what it cannot have,
  Not universal love
  But to be loved alone."

• "All I have is a voice
  To undo the folded lie,
  The romantic lie in the brain
  Of the sensual man-in-the-street
  And the lie of Authority
  Whose buildings grope the sky:
  There is no such thing as the State
  And no one exists alone;
  Hunger allows no choice
  To the citizen or the police;
  We must love one another or die."
  • (in a later 1955 edition the poet changed this line to "We must love one another and die" in recognition to the mortality of us all, and the ultimately unavoidable dooms of death.)

• "Defenceless under the night
  Our world in stupor lies;
  Yet, dotted everywhere,
  Ironic points of light
  Flash out wherever the Just
  Exchange their messages:
  May I, composed like them
  Of Eros and of dust,
  Beleaguered by the same
  Negation and despair,
  Show an affirming flame."

Attributed

• "Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered."

• "No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted."

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