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But once in a while the odd thing happens Once in a while the dream comes true And the whole pattern of life is altered Once in a while, the moon turns blue

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
Dream
Pattern
Whole
Patterns
Thing
Blue
Life
Moon
Turns
Comes
True
Altered
Happens
Odd

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You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-obje ct look.
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A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.
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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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Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral
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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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Moreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses have no right whatsoever to resist them.
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The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.
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Soft as the earth is mankind and both need to be altered.
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Had Greek civilization never existed ... we would never have become fully conscious.
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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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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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I know nothing, except what everyone knows - if there when Grace dances, I should dance.
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Swans in the winter air A white perfection have
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A shilling life will give you all the facts.
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Long ago the accusations had begun, And suddenly knew by whom it had been judged
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There are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children.
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Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the differences between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.
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We who must die demand a miracle. How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become a finite fact? Nothing can save us that is possible: We who must die demand a miracle.
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