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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
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Poet
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Happiness
Philosophize
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Rightly
Important
Pleasures
Men
Lower
Nonsense
Hungry
Higher
Pleasure

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Moreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses have no right whatsoever to resist them.
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Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind.
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The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.
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Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle.
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As biological organisms made of matter, we are subject to the laws of physics and biology: as conscious persons who create our own history we are free to decide what that history shall be. Without science, we should have no notion of equality without art, no notion of liberty.
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Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one.
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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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Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links, Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks, Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.
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Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
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Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.
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Harrow the house of the dead look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.
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Composing mortals with immortal fire.
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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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The stars are not wanted now, put out every one Pack up the moon & dismantle the sun.
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Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs.
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A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.
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Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.
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Life is a picnic on a precipice.
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Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.
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Nobody is ever sent to Hell: he or she insists on going there.
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