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As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.
W. H. Auden
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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
Author
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Essayist
Librettist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Defend
Corruption
Poet
Duty
Language
Political
More quotes by W. H. Auden
Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings.
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Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.
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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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Out on the lawn I lie in bed, Vega conspicuous overhead.
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Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.
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The only reason the Protestants and Catholics have given up the idea of universal domination is because they've realised they can't get away with it.
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No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called Games.
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It's frightfully important for a writer to be his age, not to be younger or older than he is. One might ask, What should I write at the age of sixty-four, but never, What should I write in 1940.
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The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.
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Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.
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Sincerity is technique.
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What living occasion can, Be just to the absent?
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Let all your thinks be thanks.
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Now is the age of anxiety.
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Weep for the lives your wishes never led.
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Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.
W. H. Auden
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
Private faces in public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces in private places.
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All the literati keep An imaginary friend.
W. H. Auden
The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.
W. H. Auden
