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Literary Historian Inspirational Quotes (5894)

Page 10 of 246
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Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.
W. H. Auden
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When one looks into the window of a store which sells devotional art objects, one can't help wishing the iconoclasts had won.
W. H. Auden
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Without communication with the dead, a fully human life is not possible.
W. H. Auden
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Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.
W. H. Auden
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I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.
W. H. Auden
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Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
W. H. Auden
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A man is a form of life that dreams in order to act and acts in order to dream.
W. H. Auden
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Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye.
W. H. Auden
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My poetry doesn't change from place to place - it changes with the years. It's very important to be one's age. You get ideas you have to turn down - 'I'm sorry, no longer' 'I'm sorry, not yet.
W. H. Auden
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Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the horizontal one
W. H. Auden
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Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
W. H. Auden
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There is a certain kind of person who is so dominated by the desire to be loved for himself alone that he has constantly to test those around him by tiresome behavior what he says and does must be admired, not because it is intrinsically admirable, but because it is his remark, his act. Does not this explain a good deal of avant-garde art?
W. H. Auden
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Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.
W. H. Auden
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Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral
W. H. Auden
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Why doesn't the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the more they will dwindle. At least you could use it for a summer resort instead of Maine.
W. H. Auden
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Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss
W. H. Auden
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The 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. Auden
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We till shadowed days are done, We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock
W. H. Auden
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In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.
W. H. Auden
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Caesar's double-bed is warm As an unimportant clerk Writes i do not like my work On a pink official form.
W. H. Auden
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the child unlucky in his little State, Some hearth where freedom is excluded, A hive whose honey is fear and worry, Feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape
W. H. Auden
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All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality in a statesman.
W. H. Auden
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It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will.
W. H. Auden
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I'm always amazed at the American practice of allowing one party to a homosexual act to remain passive--it's so undemocratic. Sexmust be mutual.
W. H. Auden
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