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A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
Author
Composer
Essayist
Librettist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Even
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Office
Something
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Men
Rich
Bores
Think
Else
Tremendous
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America
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People
Anything
Thinks
Hard
Everyday

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All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.
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Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye.
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Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards.
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Composing mortals with immortal fire.
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The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages, what just reason could he give for refusing?
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In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero.
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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.
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All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: I refuse to be what I am.
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The camera may do justice to laughter, but must degrade sorrow.
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Recipe for the upbringing of a poet: 'As much neurosis as the child can bear.
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Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth.
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God may reduce you on Judgment Day to tears of shame, reciting by heart the poems you would have written, had your life been good.
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In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or today.
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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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For time is inches And the heart's changes, Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted.
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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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To discover how to be human now is the reason we follow this star.
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Clear, unscaleable ahead, Rise the mountains of instead From whose cold, cascading streams None may drink except in dreams
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We are lived by powers we pretend to understand.
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Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.
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