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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
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Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Poet
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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 way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.
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We are lived by powers we pretend to understand.
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You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.
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All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie, the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man-in-the-street and the lie of Authority whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State and no one exists alone Hunger allows no choice to the citizen or the police We must love one another or die.
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No hero is mortal till he dies.
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Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss
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The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.
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Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.
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If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me.
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Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.
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No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called Games.
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Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
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As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.
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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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Our claim to our own bodies and our world is our catastrophe.
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Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.
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The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us. I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient. I hope not. I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive.
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I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.
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A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting he must also believe it to be true.
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