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It is nonsense to speak of 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures. To a hungry man it is, rightly, more important that he eat than that he philosophize.

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
Speak
Rightly
Important
Pleasures
Men
Lower
Nonsense
Hungry
Higher
Pleasure
Happiness
Philosophize

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No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
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In the end, art is small beer. The really serious things are earning one's living so as not to be a parasite and loving one's neighbor.
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters.
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The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages, what just reason could he give for refusing?
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Words have no word for words that are not true.
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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.
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The sky is darkening like a stain Something is going to fall like rain And it won't be flowers
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He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
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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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Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say.
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To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, is a keen observer of life. The word Intellectual suggests straight away. A man who's untrue to his wife.
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Why doesn't the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the more they will dwindle. At least you could use it for a summer resort instead of Maine.
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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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The only reason the Protestants and Catholics have given up the idea of universal domination is because they've realised they can't get away with it.
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Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.
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One can only blaspheme if one believes.
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The stars are not wanted now, put out every one Pack up the moon & dismantle the sun.
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Drama began as the act of a whole community. Ideally, there would be no speculators. In practice, every member of the audience should feel like an understudy.
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There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye.
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