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The nightingales are sobbing in The orchards of our mothers, And hearts that we broke long ago Have long been breaking others Tears are round, the sea is deep: Roll them overboard and sleep.
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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Essayist
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Tears
Mothers
Deep
Breaking
Sleep
Roll
Mother
Round
Orchards
Others
Rounds
Sobbing
Heart
Broke
Nightingales
Long
Hearts
Overboard
Sea
Orchard
More quotes by W. H. Auden
Private faces in public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces in private places.
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The poet who writes free verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor - dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor.
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You will be a poet because you will always be humiliated.
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I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.
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We do not change as we grow up. The difference between the child and the adult is that the former doesn't know who he is and the latter does.
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Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity. Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money. Compared with him even Balzac is a romantic.
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But once in a while the odd thing happens Once in a while the dream comes true And the whole pattern of life is altered Once in a while, the moon turns blue
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May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that 'faith' is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?
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The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.
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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.
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The older lives like not to be stood in rows or at right angles.
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Nobody is ever sent to Hell: he or she insists on going there.
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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.
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What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.
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No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.
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I said earlier that I do not believe an artist's life throws much light upon his works. I do believe, however, that, more often than most people realize, his works may throw light upon his life. An artist with certain imaginative ideas in his head may then involve himself in relationships which are congenial to them.
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Some books are undeservedly forgotten none are undeservedly remembered.
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The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.
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The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again.
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In the end, art is small beer. The really serious things are earning one's living so as not to be a parasite and loving one's neighbor.
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