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One can only blaspheme if one believes.

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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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Blaspheme
Believes
Believe

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It is, for example, axiomatic that we should all think of ourselves as being more sensitive than other people because, when we are insensitive in our dealings with others, we cannot be aware of it at the time: conscious insensitivity is a self-contradiction.
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What we have not named as a symbol escapes our notice.
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We who must die demand a miracle. How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become a finite fact? Nothing can save us that is possible: We who must die demand a miracle.
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The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.
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Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.
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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.
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I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.
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All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality in a statesman.
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The parlour cars and Pullmans are packed also with scented assassins, salad-eaters who murder on milk.
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Every high C accurately struck demolishes the theory that we are the irresponsible puppets of fate or chance.
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Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the horizontal one
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Time will say nothing but I told you so.
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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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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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Good can imagine Evil but Evil cannot imagine Good.
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My poetry doesn't change from place to place - it changes with the years. It's very important to be one's age. You get ideas you have to turn down - 'I'm sorry, no longer' 'I'm sorry, not yet.
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Though one cannot always Remember exactly why one has been happy, There is no forgetting that one was.
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Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
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Some books are undeservedly forgotten none are undeservedly remembered.
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