W. H. Auden Quotes

A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought

A poem is a form of refrigeration that stops language going bad.

Our language, one of our most precious natural resources, deserves at least as much protection as our woodlands, streams and whooping cranes.

The English language is like a broad river on whose bank a few patient anglers are sitting, while, higher up, the stream is being polluted by a string of refuse-barges tipping out their muck.

The affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.

He cared for languages dead long enough that they wouldn’t change on him.

Nothing which is harmonized by the bond of the Muse can be changed from its own to another language without destroying its sweetness

Poetry cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language.

The problem with politics isn't the money; it's the power.

If you know only one language, you're a prisoner, stuck in the tyranny of that one language.

There is a hundred things to single you out for promotion in party politics besides ability.

Power is sweet; it is a drug, the desire for which increases with a habit.

Hebrew was frozen, like frozen peas, fresh out of the Bible.

They wouldn't be politicians if they knew what they were doing.

Scientific understanding is our joy. Economic and political understanding is our duty.

The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may.

Welsh is now almost a national language in Wales. The Scottish dialects are reviving to some extent. I don't think it's a major thing, but it's there, and it's happening elsewhere.

A language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules. ... Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind.

Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth.

The Jewish people have been in exile for 2,000 years; they have lived in hundreds of countries, spoken hundreds of languages and still they kept their old language, Hebrew. They kept their Aramaic, later their Yiddish; they kept their books; they kept their faith.

We on the left have forgotten that the question is not how do you get good people to rule, most people who rule are mediocre at best and usually venal. The question is how do we make those in power frightened of us and not be seduced by formal political processes.

You have to have a sense of humor if you follow politics. Otherwise, the sheer fraudulence of it all will get you down.

I think we have such a political cesspool in America right now.

Language is the only chimera whose illusory power is endless, the inexhaustibility which keeps life from being impoverished. Let men learn to serve language.