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Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.

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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Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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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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In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero.
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Fate succumbs many a species: one alone jeopardises itself.
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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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In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.
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All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie, the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man-in-the-street and the lie of Authority whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State and no one exists alone Hunger allows no choice to the citizen or the police We must love one another or die.
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One rational voice is dumb: over a grave The household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved. Sad is Eros, builder of cities, And weeping anarchic Aphrodite.
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Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup.
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Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.
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Soft as the earth is mankind and both need to be altered.
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I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.
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I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.
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The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind.
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Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
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All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall, And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all.
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Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the horizontal one
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When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
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Money cannot buy the fuel of love but is excellent kindling.
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Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye.
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