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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
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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Without
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Technology
Science
Art
More quotes by W. H. Auden
Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate.
W. H. Auden
In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever.
W. H. Auden
With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse
W. H. Auden
As a rule, it was the pleasure-haters who became unjust.
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Precisely because we do not communicate by singing, a song can be out of place but not out of character it is just as credible that a stupid person should sing beautifully as that a clever person should do so.
W. H. Auden
All I have is a voice.
W. H. Auden
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
Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
W. H. Auden
If we really want to live, we'd better start at once to try.
W. H. Auden
Art is born of humiliation.
W. H. Auden
The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.
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Sincerity is technique.
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The definition of prayer is paying careful and concentrated attention to something other than your own constructions.
W. H. Auden
You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people.
W. H. Auden
The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.
W. H. Auden
The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.
W. H. Auden
All pity is self-pity.
W. H. Auden
Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say
W. H. Auden
Drama began as the act of a whole community. Ideally, there would be no speculators. In practice, every member of the audience should feel like an understudy.
W. H. Auden
I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.
W. H. Auden
