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All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall, And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all.

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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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Silence
Rest
Side
Sides
Ripeness
Wall

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What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves.
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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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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.
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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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I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.
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Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession.
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Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.
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Young people, who are still uncertain of their identity, often try on a succession of masks in the hope of finding the one which suits them - the one, in fact, which is not a mask.
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Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one.
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters.
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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.
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Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were.
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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.
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Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood But noble platitudes - ah, there's a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that's genuinely good From one that's base but merely has succeeded.
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The relation of faith between subject and object is unique in every case. Hundreds may believe, but each has to believe by himself.
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Why doesn't the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the more they will dwindle. At least you could use it for a summer resort instead of Maine.
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We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons.
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