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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
Author
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Literary Critic
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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Weep for the lives your wishes never led.
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All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: I refuse to be what I am.
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As biological organisms made of matter, we are subject to the laws of physics and biology: as conscious persons who create our own history we are free to decide what that history shall be. Without science, we should have no notion of equality without art, no notion of liberty.
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To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.
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Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won't believe again in their own size.
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Time will say nothing but I told you so.
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Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the differences between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.
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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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Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
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Money cannot buy the fuel of love but is excellent kindling.
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How happy the lot of the mathematician. He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve.
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A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.
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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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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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Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say
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Drama is based on the Mistake.
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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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Beloved, we are always in the wrong, Handling so clumsily our stupid lives, Suffering too little or too long, Too careful even in our selfish loves: The decorative manias we obey Die in grimaces round us every day, Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice Which utters an absurd command - Rejoice.
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It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will.
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My poetry doesn't change from place to place - it changes with the years. It's very important to be one's age. You get ideas you have to turn down - 'I'm sorry, no longer' 'I'm sorry, not yet.
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