Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) English-born poet Quotes

There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, "Did you get an erection?" If the answer is "Yes" from a majority of the twelve, then the book is pornographic.

We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country, because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbor because our "natural" attitude toward the "other" is one of either indifference or hostility.

To the man-in-the-street who, I'm sorry to say, is a keen observer of life, the word "intellectual" suggests straight away a man who's untrue to his wife.

To be happy means to be free, not from pain or fear, but from care or anxiety.

The relation of faith between subject and object is unique in every case. Hundreds may believe, but each has to believe by himself.

May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that "faith" is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?

Healing, Papa would tell me, "is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.

All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work "comes" to him.

Choice of attention... Is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.

All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation.