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Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won't believe again in their own size.

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
Librettist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Poet
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Lovers
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Lived
Long
Believe
Elves
Giants

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There was still gold and silver in the mountains, And hunger was a more immediate sorrow
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How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.
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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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Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.
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The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.
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All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality in a statesman.
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From beginning to end Wilde performed his life and continued to do so even after fame had taken the plot out of his own hands.
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I will love you forever swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday - Is that still as easy?
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To save your world you asked this man to die would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
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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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A small grove massacred to the last ash, An oak with heart-rot, give away the show: This great society is going to smash They cannot fool us with how fast they go, How much they cost each other and the gods. A culture is no better than its woods.
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We were put on this earth to make things.
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Life is a picnic on a precipice.
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There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, ''Did you get an erection?'' If the answer is ''Yes'' from a majority of the twelve, then the book is pornographic.
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A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.
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Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth.
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A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.
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No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.
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Some books are undeservedly forgotten none are undeservedly remembered.
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