A Quote by W. H. Auden

Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.

W. H. Auden

Quote Topics

Books Contemptible Exhibit Like Literary Money Public

Quote Author

W. H. Auden
English - Poet
February 21, 1907 - September 29, 1973

There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.

Samuel Johnson

I saw rich beggars and poor beggars, proud beggars and humble beggars, fat beggars and thin beggars, healthy beggars and sick beggars, whole beggars and crippled beggars, wise beggars and stupid beggars. I saw amateur beggars and professional beggars. A professional beggar is a beggar who begs for a living.

William Saroyan

Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public Records to be true.

William Blake

What honest boy would pride himself on not picking pockets ? A thief who was trying to reform would. To be conceited of doing one's duty is then a sign of how little one does it, and how little one sees what a contemptible thing it is not to do it. Could any but a low creature be conceited of not being contemptible? Until our duty becomes to us common as breathing, we are poor creatures.

George MacDonald

The human animal is a beast that eventually has to die. If he's got money, he buys and he buys and he buys. The reason he buys everything he can is because of some crazy hope that one of the things he buys will be life everlasting.

Burl Ives

Of all the vulgar arts of government, that of solving every difficulty that might arise by thrusting the hand into the public purse is the most illusory and contemptible.

Robert Peel

Money has no religion. Money does not belong to any class or creed. Neither it belongs to a gender nor an age. Money decides fate. Money also decides status. Money buys you food and money buys a basic necessity like water too.

Shweta Basu Prasad

War, like children's fights, are meaningless, pitiless, and contemptible.

Rumi

It seems to me that the moralist is the most useless and contemptible of creatures. He is useless in that he would expend his energies upon making judgments rather than upon gaining knowledge, for the reason that judgment is easy and knowledge is difficult. He is contemptible in that his judgments reflect a vision of himself which in his ignorance and pride he would impose upon the world. I implore you, do not become a moralist; you will destroy your art and your mind.

John Edward Williams

He that buys land buys many stones, He that buys flesh buys many bones, He that buys eggs buys many shells, But he that buys good ale buys nothing else.