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The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me.

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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Literary Historian
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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The trees encountered on a country stroll Reveal a lot about that country's soul ... A culture is no better than its woods.
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To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.
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A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.
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Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith.
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There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.
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In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.
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We are all here on earth to help others what on earth the others are here for I don't know.
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The parlour cars and Pullmans are packed also with scented assassins, salad-eaters who murder on milk.
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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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I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.
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Long ago the accusations had begun, And suddenly knew by whom it had been judged
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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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So long as we think of it objectively, time is Fate or Chance, the factor in our lives for which we are not responsible, and about which we can do nothing but when we begin to think of it subjectively, we feel responsible for our time, and the notion of punctuality arises.
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Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.
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Caesar's double-bed is warm As an unimportant clerk Writes i do not like my work On a pink official form.
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My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.
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Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.
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Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.
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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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We were put on this earth to make things.
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