The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten.

— W.H. Auden

The true men of action in our time those who transform the world are not the politicians and statesmen but the scientists. Unfortunately poetry cannot celebrate them because their deeds are concerned with things, not persons, and are therefore speechless. When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.

— W.H. Auden

The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.

— W.H. Auden

To make one, there must be two.

— W.H. Auden

To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally.

— W.H. Auden

To save your world, you asked this man to die:Would this man, could he see you now, asked why?

— W.H. Auden

Truth, like love and sleep, resents approaches that are too intense.

— W.H. Auden

We are, for all our polish, of little stature, and, as human lives, compared with authentic martyrs, of no account.

— W.H. Auden

We must love one another or die

— W.H. Auden

We would rather be ruined than changed We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die.

— W.H. Auden