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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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More quotes by W. H. Auden
Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.
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The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.
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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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Criticism should be a casual conversation.
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To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.
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I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.
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To me Art's subject is the human clay, / And landscape but a background to a torso / All Cezanne's apples I would give away / For one small Goya or a Daumier.
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All I have is a voice.
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Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.
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And none will hear the postman’s knock Without a quickening of the heart. For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
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The sky is darkening like a stain Something is going to fall like rain And it won't be flowers
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A poet feels the impulse to create a work of art when the passive awe provoked by an event is transformed into a desire to express that awe in a rite of worship.
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Words are for those with promises to keep.
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I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.
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Soft as the earth is mankind and both need to be altered.
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Marriage is rarely bliss But, surely it would be worse As particles to pelt At thousands of miles per sec About a universe In which a lover's kiss Would either not be felt Or break the loved one's neck.
W. H. Auden
In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a unique perspective on the world, a member of a class of one.
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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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The eye likes novelty, but the ear craves familiarity.
W. H. Auden
Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.
W. H. Auden
