Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same time prevented from ever clashing.
W. H. AudenLovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won't believe again in their own size.
W. H. AudenThe ideal audience the poet imagines consists of the beautiful who go to bed with him, the powerful who invite him to dinner and tell him secrets of state, and his fellow-poets. The actual audience he gets consists of myopic schoolteachers, pimply young men who eat in cafeterias, and his fellow-poets. This means, in fact, he writes for his fellow-poets.
W. H. AudenIn the end, art is small beer. The really serious things are earning one's living so as not to be a parasite and loving one's neighbor.
W. H. Auden