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In the end, art is small beer. The really serious things are earning one's living so as not to be a parasite and loving one's neighbor.

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
Small
Living
Parasite
Art
Parasites
Ends
Earning
Really
Beer
Things
Neighbor
Life
Loving
Serious

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Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.
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I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.
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Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
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Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
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Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.
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You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people.
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Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same time prevented from ever clashing.
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The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born.
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Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.
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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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There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think that , as a rule, a poet should read them.
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There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.
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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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Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.
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Though one cannot always Remember exactly why one has been happy, There is no forgetting that one was.
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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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We honor founders of these starving cities, Whose honor is the image of our sorrow.
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A poet feels the impulse to create a work of art when the passive awe provoked by an event is transformed into a desire to express that awe in a rite of worship.
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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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