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Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

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
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More quotes by W. H. Auden

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In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or today.
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The most difficult problem in personal knowledge, whether of oneself or of others, is the problem of guessing when to think as a historian and when to think as an anthropologist.
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Blessed be all metrical rules that forbid automatic responses, force us to have second thoughts, free us from the fetters of Self.
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Of course,Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture.
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Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay If I could tell you I would let you know.
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The most important truths are likely to be those which society at that time least wants to hear.
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To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally.
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Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
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The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again.
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Thou shalt not answer questionnaires Or quizzes upon world affairs, Nor with compliance Take any test. Thou shalt not sit with statisticians nor commit A social science.
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We are all here on earth to help others what on earth the others are here for I don't know.
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To have a sense of sin means to feel guilty at there being an ethical choice to make, a guilt which, however good I may become, remains unchanged.
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters How well they understood Its human position how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.
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The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten.
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Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.
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All I have is a voice.
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The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order The dance's pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy The tune is catching and will not stop Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop.
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Good can imagine Evil but Evil cannot imagine Good.
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I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade
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We must love one another or die
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