Quote

Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.

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
Women
Cancer
Outlet
Men
Cause
Retire
Like
Nobody
Outlets
Fire
Retiring
Causes
Strike
Foiled
Creative
Pretend
Childless
Waiting
Hidden
Assassin
Though
Strikes
Assassins

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Poetry makes nothing happen.
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The most difficult problem in personal knowledge, whether of oneself or of others, is the problem of guessing when to think as a historian and when to think as an anthropologist.
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Sexual fidelity is more important in a homosexual relationship than in any other. In other relationships there are a variety of ties. But here, fidelity is the only bond.
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August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier.
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Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.
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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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The trees encountered on a country stroll Reveal a lot about that country's soul ... A culture is no better than its woods.
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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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Love each other or perish.
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Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind.
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Like love we don't know where or why Like love we cant compel or fly Like Love we often weep Like Love we seldom keep
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What living occasion can, Be just to the absent?
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Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one.
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Say this city has ten million souls, Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes: Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.
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Young people, who are still uncertain of their identity, often try on a succession of masks in the hope of finding the one which suits them - the one, in fact, which is not a mask.
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I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.
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All pity is self-pity.
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In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a unique perspective on the world, a member of a class of one.
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The camera may do justice to laughter, but must degrade sorrow.
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