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Aside from purely technical analysis, nothing can be said about music, except when it is bad when it is good, one can only listen and be grateful.

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
Listen
Music
Purely
Nothing
Technical
Good
Aside
Analysis
Grateful
Except

More quotes by W. H. Auden

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All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: I refuse to be what I am.
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The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience.
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History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.
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Cathedrals, luxury liners laden with souls, Holding to the east their hulls of stone.
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Sincerity is technique.
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The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.
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I will love you forever swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday - Is that still as easy?
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters.
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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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Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
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Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.
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Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
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Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.
W. H. Auden
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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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Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.
W. H. Auden
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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.
W. H. Auden
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Beloved, we are always in the wrong, Handling so clumsily our stupid lives, Suffering too little or too long, Too careful even in our selfish loves: The decorative manias we obey Die in grimaces round us every day, Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice Which utters an absurd command - Rejoice.
W. H. Auden
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Courses in prosody, rhetoric and comparative philology would be required of all students, and every student would have to select three courses out of courses in mathematics, natural history, geology, meteorology, archaeology, mythology, liturgics, cooking.
W. H. Auden
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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.
W. H. Auden
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I know nothing, except what everyone knows - if there when Grace dances, I should dance.
W. H. Auden