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The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.

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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Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.
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My poetry doesn't change from place to place - it changes with the years. It's very important to be one's age. You get ideas you have to turn down - 'I'm sorry, no longer' 'I'm sorry, not yet.
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It is, for example, axiomatic that we should all think of ourselves as being more sensitive than other people because, when we are insensitive in our dealings with others, we cannot be aware of it at the time: conscious insensitivity is a self-contradiction.
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In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.
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Laziness acknowledges the relation of the present to the past but ignores its relation to the future impatience acknowledge its relation to the future but ignores its relation to the past neither the lazy nor the impatient man, that is, accepts the present instant in its full reality and so cannot love his neighbour completely.
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Does God judge us by appearances? I Suspect that He does.
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Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss
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I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.
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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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Clear, unscaleable ahead, Rise the mountains of instead From whose cold, cascading streams None may drink except in dreams
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You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.
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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 windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have Not universal love But to be loved alone.
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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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There was still gold and silver in the mountains, And hunger was a more immediate sorrow
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The stars are not wanted now, put out every one Pack up the moon & dismantle the sun.
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As biological organisms made of matter, we are subject to the laws of physics and biology: as conscious persons who create our own history we are free to decide what that history shall be. Without science, we should have no notion of equality without art, no notion of liberty.
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Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life
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It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will.
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In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.
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