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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.
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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Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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More quotes by W. H. Auden
Yet no one hears his own remarks as prose.
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Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession.
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Adjectives are the potbelly of poetry.
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My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.
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The element of craftsmanship in poetry is obscured by the fact that all men are taught to speak and most to read and write, while very few men are taught to draw or paint or write music.
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Say this city has ten million souls, Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes: Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.
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We till shadowed days are done, We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock
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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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And none will hear the postman’s knock Without a quickening of the heart. For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
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The Ogre does what ogres can, Deeds quite impossible for Man, But one prize is beyond his reach, The Ogre cannot master Speech: About a subjugated plain, Among its desperate and slain, The Ogre stalks with hands on hips, While drivel gushes from his lips.
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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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Aside from purely technical analysis, nothing can be said about music, except when it is bad when it is good, one can only listen and be grateful.
W. H. Auden
A false enchantment can all too easily last a lifetime.
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What we have not named as a symbol escapes our notice.
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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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All pity is self-pity.
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It's usually the stupid people that develop long illnesses. You need more than indolence and selfishness, you need endurance to make a good patient.
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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.
W. H. Auden
One can only blaspheme if one believes.
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Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred without Science, we should always worship false gods.
W. H. Auden