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Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.
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
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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Words have no word for words that are not true.
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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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Recipe for the upbringing of a poet: 'As much neurosis as the child can bear.
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A poor American feels guilty at being poor, but less guilty than an American rentier who has inherited wealth but is doing nothingto increase it what can the latter do but take to drink and psychoanalysis?
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The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again.
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Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.
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Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.
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Of course, Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.
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Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
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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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Alone, alone, about the dreadful wood / Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind, / Dreading to find its Father.
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All the literati keep An imaginary friend.
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There was still gold and silver in the mountains, And hunger was a more immediate sorrow
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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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In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start.
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Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.
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Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say.
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Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.
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Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.
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