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Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss
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
There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, ''Did you get an erection?'' If the answer is ''Yes'' from a majority of the twelve, then the book is pornographic.
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To ask the hard question is simple.
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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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Oh, how I wish that Orwell were still alive, so that I could read his comments on contemporary events!
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A person incapable of imaging another world than given to him by his senses would be subhuman, and a person who identifies his imaginary world with the world of sensory fact has become insane.
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The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.
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Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.
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I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.
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A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting he must also believe it to be true.
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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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No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.
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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.
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America has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a member of an élite which knows the law in some field or other, is an object of distrust and resentment.
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Cathedrals, luxury liners laden with souls, Holding to the east their hulls of stone.
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters.
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Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind.
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To save your world you asked this man to die would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
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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
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Art is born of humiliation.
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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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