A Quote by W. H. Auden

A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true. — © W. H. Auden
A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true.
A poet must never make a statement simply because it sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true." - W. H. Auden "A poem...begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness...It finds the thought and the thought finds the words.
The poet must not only write the poem but must scrutinize the world intensely, or anyway that part of the world he or she has taken for subject. If the poem is thin, it is likely so not because the poet does not know enough words, but because he or she has not stood long enough among the flowers--has not seen them in any fresh, exciting, and valid way.
All religions, plainly and simply, cannot be true. Some beliefs are false, and we know them to be false. So it does no good to put a halo on the notion of tolerance as if everything could be equally true. To deem all beliefs equally true is sheer nonsense for the simple reason that to deny that statement would also, then, be true. But if the denial of the statement is also true, then all religions are not true.
Whether it is an ad or a business, it must be something I believe in. I cannot do something simply for the money. It must connect with me because I want to be a catalyst to make people's lives happier.
You must see it. You must believe it. And then you must never stop working to make it happen.
Let the poet dream his dreams. Yet, the poet must look at the world; must enter into other men's lives; must look at the earth and the sky, must examine the dust in the street; must walk through the world and his mirror.
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.
Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What human beings can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature. This need we may call self-actualization.
And this I do believe above all, especially in times of greater discouragement, that I must BELIEVE-that I must believe in my fellow people-that I must believe in myself-that I must believe in God-if life is to have any meaning.
Every true poet, I thought, must be original and originality a condition of poetic genius; so that each poet is like a species in nature (not an individuum genericum or specificum ) and can never recur. That nothing shd. be old or borrowed however cannot be.
The Judo pupil, therefore, must cultivate his mind; he must never feel fear, never lose his temper, never be off his guard; but he must be cool and calm, though not absent-minded; he must act as quick as thought, according to circumstances. He must also be dexterous as well as bold both in attack and in defense.
It’s also true that I might have never made Taxi Driver [1976] were it not for the success of Alice [Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 1974]. The question of commercialism is a source of worry. Must one make a choice, must it be a matter of either setting your sights on winning an Academy Award and becoming a millionaire, or making only the movies you want to make and starving to death?
I believe most definitely that one must not only grapple with the problems on the board, one must also make every effort to combat the thoughts and will of the opponent.
If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn't wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.
All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.
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