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The definition of prayer is paying careful and concentrated attention to something other than your own constructions.
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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More quotes by W. H. Auden
Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
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Harrow the house of the dead look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.
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It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly.
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Art is born of humiliation.
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Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.
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The truly tragic kind of suffering is the kind produced and defiantly insisted upon by the hero himself so that, instead of making him better, it makes him worse and when he dies he is not reconciled to the law but defiant, that is, damned. Lear is not a tragic hero, Othello is.
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Now is the age of anxiety.
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We were put on this earth to make things.
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One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell.
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In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required.
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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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Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance 'till you drop.
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Sincerity is technique.
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To be happy means to be free, not from pain or fear, but from care or anxiety.
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I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.
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When one looks into the window of a store which sells devotional art objects, one can't help wishing the iconoclasts had won.
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To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.
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O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you've missed.
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Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle.
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The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.
W. H. Auden
