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The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money, still less, as is apt to happen when these are abandoned, of race, but of age.
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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Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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More quotes by W. H. Auden
Learn from your dreams what you lack.
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Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity.
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Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.
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One of the troubles of our times is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters.
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There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.
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The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have Not universal love But to be loved alone.
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To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith
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Some books are undeservedly forgotten none are undeservedly remembered.
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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.
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We who must die demand a miracle. How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become a finite fact? Nothing can save us that is possible: We who must die demand a miracle.
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The lights must never go out, The music must always play
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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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Now is the age of anxiety.
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A man has his distinctive personal scent which his wife, his children and his dog can recognize. A crowd has a generalized stink. The public is odorless.
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There was still gold and silver in the mountains, And hunger was a more immediate sorrow
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To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.
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Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay If I could tell you I would let you know.
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The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order The dance's pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy The tune is catching and will not stop Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop.
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There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love.
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Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good.
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