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My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.
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
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Poet
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Tell
Deepest
Truth
Politicians
Must
Politician
Never
Dangerous
People
Feeling
Humored
Possible
Lunatics
Politics
Avoided
Feelings
Carefully
More quotes by W. H. Auden
If there are any souls in hell, it is because that is where they insist on being.
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My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.
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By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
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I will love you forever swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday - Is that still as easy?
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I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.
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To ask the hard question is simple.
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Precisely because we do not communicate by singing, a song can be out of place but not out of character it is just as credible that a stupid person should sing beautifully as that a clever person should do so.
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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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From beginning to end Wilde performed his life and continued to do so even after fame had taken the plot out of his own hands.
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In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or today.
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The law cannot forgive, for the law has not been wronged, only broken only persons can be wronged. The law can pardon, but it can only pardon what it has the power to punish.
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An honest self-portrait is extremely rare because a man who has reached the degree of self-consciousness presupposed by the desire to paint his own portrait has almost always also developed an ego-consciousness which paints himself painting himself, and introduces artificial highlights and dramatic shadows.
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The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.
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You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.
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Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.
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The definition of prayer is paying careful and concentrated attention to something other than your own constructions.
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Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith.
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Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
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Without communication with the dead, a fully human life is not possible.
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It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
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