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Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen to, especially if the shop is not one's own.
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
Boring
Especially
Impolite
Listening
Convention
Listen
Shop
Talk
Conventions
Interesting
Shops
Earth
Invented
Nothing
Silly
More quotes by W. H. Auden
May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that 'faith' is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?
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Most people call something profound, not because it is near some important truth but because it is distant from ordinary life. Thus, darkness is profound to the eye, silence to the ear what-is-not is the profundity of what-is.
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Some books are undeservedly forgotten none are undeservedly remembered.
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We till shadowed days are done, We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock
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The relation of faith between subject and object is unique in every case. Hundreds may believe, but each has to believe by himself.
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No being can make another one happy.
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A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting he must also believe it to be true.
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Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
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Money cannot buy the fuel of love but is excellent kindling.
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Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.
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Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.
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Political history is far too criminal to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villians from fiction.
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Time will say nothing but I told you so.
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Drama is based on the Mistake.
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Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.
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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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The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor, simply because major poets write a lot.
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A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.
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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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A man has his distinctive personal scent which his wife, his children and his dog can recognize. A crowd has a generalized stink. The public is odorless.
W. H. Auden
