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We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.

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

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If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then the best lives for the writer to observe are those in which the role of natural necessity is clearest, namely, the lives of the very poor.
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Let me see what I wrote so I know what I think
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A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
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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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Fate succumbs many a species: one alone jeopardises itself.
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A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.
W. H. Auden
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The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages, what just reason could he give for refusing?
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A man has his distinctive personal scent which his wife, his children and his dog can recognize. A crowd has a generalized stink. The public is odorless.
W. H. Auden
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Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity.
W. H. Auden
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History marched to the drums of a clear idea...
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A man is a form of life that dreams in order to act and acts in order to dream.
W. H. Auden
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Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse.
W. H. Auden
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There is a certain kind of person who is so dominated by the desire to be loved for himself alone that he has constantly to test those around him by tiresome behavior what he says and does must be admired, not because it is intrinsically admirable, but because it is his remark, his act. Does not this explain a good deal of avant-garde art?
W. H. Auden
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God is Love, we are taught as children to believe. But when we first begin to get some inkling of how He loves us, we are repelled it seems so cold, indeed, not love at all as we understand the word.
W. H. Auden
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The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.
W. H. Auden
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Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate.
W. H. Auden
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Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
W. H. Auden
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The friends who met here and embraced are gone, Each to his own mistake.
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Accurate scholarship can unearth the whole offence from luther untill noe that has driven a culture mad. From what occured at linz what huge imago made a psychopathic god. i and the public know what all schoolchildren learn those to whom evil is done do evil in return.
W. H. Auden
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Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.
W. H. Auden