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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
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Playwright
Poet
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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Retiring
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Hidden
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Women
Cancer
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Men
Cause
Retire

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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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Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral
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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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It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly.
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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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In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start.
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Swans in the winter air A white perfection have
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To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself.
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One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a person and turn him into an automaton, the surest method is not physical torture, in the strict sense, but simply to keep him awake, i.e., in an existential relation to life without intermission.
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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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I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.
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A poem is a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motorcycle.
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All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: I refuse to be what I am.
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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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Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.
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Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.
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The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.
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To save your world you asked this man to die would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
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To be free is often to be lonely.
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