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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.

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
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Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Would
Conceit
Love
Reflection
Beauty
Free
Fall
Enthralled
Beautiful
Narcissus
Doe
Conceited
Years
Fading

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If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.
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Why doesn't the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the more they will dwindle. At least you could use it for a summer resort instead of Maine.
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If there are any souls in hell, it is because that is where they insist on being.
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God is Love, we are taught as children to believe. But when we first begin to get some inkling of how He loves us, we are repelled it seems so cold, indeed, not love at all as we understand the word.
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It is nonsense to speak of 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures. To a hungry man it is, rightly, more important that he eat than that he philosophize.
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Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.
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History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.
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