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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
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Defend
Corruption
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Duty
Language
Political
More quotes by W. H. Auden
Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.
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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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It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
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Fate succumbs many a species: one alone jeopardises itself.
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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 are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children.
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History marched to the drums of a clear idea...
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America has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a member of an élite which knows the law in some field or other, is an object of distrust and resentment.
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My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.
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The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.
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Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read The hunter's waking thoughts.
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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
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What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves.
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There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye.
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He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
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By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
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Left to itself the masculine imagination has very little appreciation for the here and now it prefers to dwell on what is absent, on what has been or may be. If men are more punctual than women, it is because they know that, without the external discipline of clock time, they would never get anything done.
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Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.
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Blessed be all metrical rules that forbid automatic responses, force us to have second thoughts, free us from the fetters of Self.
W. H. Auden
The lights must never go out, The music must always play
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