If we apply the term revolution to what happened in North America between 1776 and 1829, it has a special meaning. Normally, the word describes the process by which man transforms himself from one kind of man, living in one kind of society, with one way of looking at the world, into another kind of man, another society, another conception of life.... The American case is different: it is not a question of the Old Man transforming himself into the New, but of the New Man becoming alive to the fact that he is new, that he has been transformed already without his having realized it.
W. H. AudenThe chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor, simply because major poets write a lot.
W. H. AudenHow should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.
W. H. Auden