Quote

To me Art's subject is the human clay, / And landscape but a background to a torso / All Cezanne's apples I would give away / For one small Goya or a Daumier.

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
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Would
Subjects
Cezanne
Small
Torso
Away
Clay
Art
Apples
Give
Background
Human
Backgrounds
Humans
Landscape
Giving
Subject
Goya

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Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
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Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.
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Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the differences between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.
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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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The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience.
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Money cannot buy the fuel of love but is excellent kindling.
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Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle.
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Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same time prevented from ever clashing.
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Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.
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The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.
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Nobody is ever sent to Hell: he or she insists on going there.
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A verbal art like poetry is reflective it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.
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A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.
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There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police We must love one another or die.
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Long ago the accusations had begun, And suddenly knew by whom it had been judged
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Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on.
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