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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.

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
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More quotes by W. H. Auden

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A small grove massacred to the last ash, An oak with heart-rot, give away the show: This great society is going to smash They cannot fool us with how fast they go, How much they cost each other and the gods. A culture is no better than its woods.
W. H. Auden
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There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.
W. H. Auden
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Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.
W. H. Auden
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Political history is far too criminal to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villians from fiction.
W. H. Auden
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Harrow the house of the dead look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.
W. H. Auden
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Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood But noble platitudes - ah, there's a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that's genuinely good From one that's base but merely has succeeded.
W. H. Auden
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Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate.
W. H. Auden
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The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again.
W. H. Auden
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A verbal art like poetry is reflective it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.
W. H. Auden
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If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.
W. H. Auden
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There is no love There are only the various envies, all of them sad.
W. H. Auden
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All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: I refuse to be what I am.
W. H. Auden
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We till shadowed days are done, We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock
W. H. Auden
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Long ago the accusations had begun, And suddenly knew by whom it had been judged
W. H. Auden
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Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity. Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money. Compared with him even Balzac is a romantic.
W. H. Auden
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The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience.
W. H. Auden
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There are three cardinal rules - don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a drink without being asked, and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.
W. H. Auden
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If there are any souls in hell, it is because that is where they insist on being.
W. H. Auden
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A writer is a maker, not a man of action: his private life is of no concern to anybody but himself, his family and his friends.
W. H. Auden
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We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbor because our natural attitude toward the other is one of either indifference or hostility.
W. H. Auden