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Be subtle, various, ornamental, clever, And do not listen to those critics ever Whose crude provincial gullets crave in books Plain cooking made still plainer by plain cooks.
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
Listen
Plain
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Subtle
Still
Clever
Plainer
Ever
Cooking
Ornamental
Book
Critics
Provincial
Made
Various
Crude
Whose
Crave
More quotes by W. H. Auden
Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm.
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I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky.
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Thou shalt not answer questionnaires Or quizzes upon world affairs, Nor with compliance Take any test. Thou shalt not sit with statisticians nor commit A social science.
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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.
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The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor, simply because major poets write a lot.
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But once in a while the odd thing happens Once in a while the dream comes true And the whole pattern of life is altered Once in a while, the moon turns blue
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To have a sense of sin means to feel guilty at there being an ethical choice to make, a guilt which, however good I may become, remains unchanged.
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Had Greek civilization never existed ... we would never have become fully conscious.
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There is a certain kind of person who is so dominated by the desire to be loved for himself alone that he has constantly to test those around him by tiresome behavior what he says and does must be admired, not because it is intrinsically admirable, but because it is his remark, his act. Does not this explain a good deal of avant-garde art?
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The lights must never go out, The music must always play
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No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.
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One rational voice is dumb: over a grave The household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved. Sad is Eros, builder of cities, And weeping anarchic Aphrodite.
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters How well they understood Its human position how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.
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No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
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Love each other or perish.
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You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.
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To save your world you asked this man to die would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
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I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.
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Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read The hunter's waking thoughts.
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All pity is self-pity.
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