Wystan Hugh Auden citáty

„Človek je dejinotvorné stvorenie, ktoré nemôže opakovať svoju minulosť, ani ju nechať za sebou.“

—  Wystan Hugh Auden

„Logika je umenie ísť plný dôvery nesprávnym smerom.“

—  Wystan Hugh Auden

„Malí tyrani ohrozovaní veľkými sú úprimne presvedčení, že milujú slobodu.“

—  Wystan Hugh Auden

„Medzi tými, ktorých mám rád alebo obdivujem nemôžem nájsť žiadneho spoločného menovateľa, ale môžem ho nájsť medzi tými, ktorých milujem: všetci ma rozosmejú.“

—  Wystan Hugh Auden

„To, čo ponúkajú hromadné oznamovacie prostriedky, nie je populárne umenie, ale zábava, ktorá je určená nato, aby bola skonzumovaná ako jedlo, zabudnutá a nahradená ďalším chodom.“

—  Wystan Hugh Auden

„Umenie je duchovný život umožnený vedou.“

—  Wystan Hugh Auden

„Vybrať si to, čo je ťažké, akoby to bolo ľahké, každý deň, to je viera.“

—  Wystan Hugh Auden

„Most people are even less original in their dreaming than in their waking life; their dreams are more monotonous than their thoughts and oddly enough, more literary.“

—  W. H. Auden, kniha Forewords and Afterwords

"Walter de la Mare", p. 393
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

„The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.“

—  W. H. Auden

"August 1968"

„A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.“

—  W. H. Auden

Squares and Oblongs, in Poets at Work (1948), p. 170

„About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters.“

—  W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts

Zdroj: Musée des Beaux Arts (1938), Lines 1–2

„Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.“

—  W. H. Auden

Funeral Blues (1936)

„In the late Middle Ages there were, no doubt, many persons in monasteries and convents who had no business there and should have been out in the world earning an honest living, but today it may very well be that there are many persons trying to earn a living in the world and driven by failure into mental homes whose true home would be the cloister.“

—  W. H. Auden, kniha Forewords and Afterwords

"The Protestant Mystics", p. 73
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

„I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.“

—  W. H. Auden, September 1, 1939

Zdroj: September 1, 1939 (1939), Lines 19–22

„Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.“

—  W. H. Auden, kniha The Dyer's Hand

"Reading", p. 10
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

„No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.“

—  W. H. Auden, kniha The Dyer's Hand

"Notes on Music and Opera", p. 472
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

„Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods.“

—  W. H. Auden, kniha The Dyer's Hand

"The Virgin & The Dynamo", p. 62
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

„Young people, who are still uncertain of their identity, often try on a succession of masks in the hope of finding the one which suits them — the one, in fact, which is not a mask.“

—  W. H. Auden, kniha Forewords and Afterwords

"One of the Family", p. 369
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

„A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.“

—  W. H. Auden

Often attributed to Auden, but he was repeating an anonymous joke; he did not claim to have originated it. See "Who Wrote Auden's Definition of a Professor?" http://www.audensociety.org/definition.html
Misattributed