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You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say
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Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood But noble platitudes - ah, there's a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that's genuinely good From one that's base but merely has succeeded.
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All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our time, is only a letter written to oneself.
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Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.
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Shall memory restore The steps and the shore, The face and the meeting place.
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No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
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I just try to put the thing out and hope somebody will read it. Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I reply: 'Do you read me?' If they say 'Yes,' I say, 'Do you like it?' If they say 'No,' then I say, 'I don't write for you.'
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Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he'll escape.
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There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye.
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Recipe for the upbringing of a poet: 'As much neurosis as the child can bear.
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A dead man who never caused others to die seldom rates a statue.
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I know nothing, except what everyone knows - if there when Grace dances, I should dance.
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Without communication with the dead, a fully human life is not possible.
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Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.
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Of course, Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.
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If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.
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Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
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Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards.
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Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.
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There is a great deal of difference in believing something still, and believing it again.
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