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The most important truths are likely to be those which society at that time least wants to hear.
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
The sky is darkening like a stain Something is going to fall like rain And it won't be flowers
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A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it.
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Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards.
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Few can remember clearly when innocence came to a sudden end, the moment at which we ask for the first time: Am I loved?
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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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Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.
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A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.
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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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Composing mortals with immortal fire.
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What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.
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Beloved, we are always in the wrong, Handling so clumsily our stupid lives, Suffering too little or too long, Too careful even in our selfish loves: The decorative manias we obey Die in grimaces round us every day, Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice Which utters an absurd command - Rejoice.
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Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were.
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When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
W. H. Auden
Now is the age of anxiety.
W. H. Auden
To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, is a keen observer of life. The word Intellectual suggests straight away. A man who's untrue to his wife.
W. H. Auden
If we really want to live, we'd better start at once to try.
W. H. Auden
I used to try and concentrate the poem so much that there wasn't a word that wasn't essential. This leads to becoming boring and constipated.
W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
W. H. Auden
I just try to put the thing out and hope somebody will read it. Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I reply: 'Do you read me?' If they say 'Yes,' I say, 'Do you like it?' If they say 'No,' then I say, 'I don't write for you.'
W. H. Auden
If it form the one landscape that we the inconstant ones Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly Because it dissolves in water.
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