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It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly.

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
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Poet
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Landscape
Ugly
Criticism
Suffering
Better

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Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.
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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.
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Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading.
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Caesar's double-bed is warm As an unimportant clerk Writes i do not like my work On a pink official form.
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To have a sense of sin means to feel guilty at there being an ethical choice to make, a guilt which, however good I may become, remains unchanged.
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Composing mortals with immortal fire.
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I said earlier that I do not believe an artist's life throws much light upon his works. I do believe, however, that, more often than most people realize, his works may throw light upon his life. An artist with certain imaginative ideas in his head may then involve himself in relationships which are congenial to them.
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What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one's gifts?
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Soft as the earth is mankind and both need to be altered.
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Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.
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Dogmatic theological statements are neither logical propositions nor poetic utterances. They are ''shaggy dog'' stories they have a point, but he who tries too hard to get it will miss it.
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So long as we think of it objectively, time is Fate or Chance, the factor in our lives for which we are not responsible, and about which we can do nothing but when we begin to think of it subjectively, we feel responsible for our time, and the notion of punctuality arises.
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Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.
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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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Words are for those with promises to keep.
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With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse
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Clear, unscaleable ahead, Rise the mountains of instead From whose cold, cascading streams None may drink except in dreams
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The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.
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A man is a form of life that dreams in order to act and acts in order to dream.
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In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or today.
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