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How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
Author
Composer
Essayist
Librettist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Like
Burn
Affection
Loving
Equal
Return
Passion
Stars
Cannot

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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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I will love you forever swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday - Is that still as easy?
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If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.
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History marched to the drums of a clear idea...
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Now is the age of anxiety.
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I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade
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Every high C accurately struck demolishes the theory that we are the irresponsible puppets of fate or chance.
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Shall memory restore The steps and the shore, The face and the meeting place.
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Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral
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Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen to, especially if the shop is not one's own.
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Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life
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Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay If I could tell you I would let you know.
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We are all here on earth to help others.
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All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our time, is only a letter written to oneself.
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the child unlucky in his little State, Some hearth where freedom is excluded, A hive whose honey is fear and worry, Feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape
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I know nothing, except what everyone knows - if there when Grace dances, I should dance.
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A vice in common can be the ground of a friendship but not a virtue in common. X and Y may be friends because they are both drunkards or womanizers but, if they are both sober and chaste, they are friends for some other reason.
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It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly.
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Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores.
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Moreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses have no right whatsoever to resist them.
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