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Sincerity is technique.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
Author
Composer
Essayist
Librettist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Sincerity
Crafts
Technique

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Criticism should be a casual conversation.
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Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral
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The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience.
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What is a Professor of Poetry? How can poetry be professed?
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The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again.
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You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-obje ct look.
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Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading.
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Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won't believe again in their own size.
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We must love one another or die
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Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.
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The friends who met here and embraced are gone, Each to his own mistake.
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It's usually the stupid people that develop long illnesses. You need more than indolence and selfishness, you need endurance to make a good patient.
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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
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Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life
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Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession.
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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.
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The true men of action in our time, those who transform the world, are not the politicians and statesmen, but the scientists
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No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called Games.
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Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.
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We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbor because our natural attitude toward the other is one of either indifference or hostility.
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