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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
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Hungry
Higher
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Happiness
Philosophize
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Rightly
Important
Pleasures
Men
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Nonsense
More quotes by W. H. Auden
The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten.
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All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.
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Good can imagine Evil but Evil cannot imagine Good.
W. H. Auden
There is a great deal of difference in believing something still, and believing it again.
W. H. Auden
Hunger allows no choice.
W. H. Auden
Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
W. H. Auden
The definition of prayer is paying careful and concentrated attention to something other than your own constructions.
W. H. Auden
The eye likes novelty, but the ear craves familiarity.
W. H. Auden
From beginning to end Wilde performed his life and continued to do so even after fame had taken the plot out of his own hands.
W. H. Auden
Accurate scholarship can unearth the whole offence from luther untill noe that has driven a culture mad. From what occured at linz what huge imago made a psychopathic god. i and the public know what all schoolchildren learn those to whom evil is done do evil in return.
W. H. Auden
But if a stranger in the train asks me my occupation, I never answer writer for fear that he may go on to ask me what I write, and to answer poetry would embarrass us both, for we both know that nobody can earn a living simply by writing poetry.
W. H. Auden
The older lives like not to be stood in rows or at right angles.
W. H. Auden
Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.
W. H. Auden
Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.
W. H. Auden
A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.
W. H. Auden
Now is the age of anxiety.
W. H. Auden
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.
W. H. Auden
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.
W. H. Auden
Out on the lawn I lie in bed, Vega conspicuous overhead.
W. H. Auden
No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.
W. H. Auden
