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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
Analysis
Grateful
Except
Listen
Music
Nothing
Purely
Good
Technical
Aside

More quotes by W. H. Auden

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In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever.
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If we really want to live, we'd better start at once to try.
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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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There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think that , as a rule, a poet should read them.
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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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Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.
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Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.
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Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred without Science, we should always worship false gods.
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What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves.
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Life is a picnic on a precipice.
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A shilling life will give you all the facts.
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History marched to the drums of a clear idea...
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The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.
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If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.
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The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.
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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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It's usually the stupid people that develop long illnesses. You need more than indolence and selfishness, you need endurance to make a good patient.
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We were put on this earth to make things.
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Out on the lawn I lie in bed, Vega conspicuous overhead.
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I'm always amazed at the American practice of allowing one party to a homosexual act to remain passive--it's so undemocratic. Sexmust be mutual.
W. H. Auden