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The element of craftsmanship in poetry is obscured by the fact that all men are taught to speak and most to read and write, while very few men are taught to draw or paint or write music.

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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Essayist
Librettist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Playwright
Poet
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Men
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Obscured
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Craftsmanship
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Speak
Draw
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Draws
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Paint
Music
Elements
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Poetry

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I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.
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Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm.
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Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards.
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A dead man who never caused others to die seldom rates a statue.
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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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To discover how to be human now is the reason we follow this star.
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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.
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Every high C accurately struck demolishes the theory that we are the irresponsible puppets of fate or chance.
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Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings.
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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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Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.
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My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.
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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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What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one's gifts?
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A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.
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I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky.
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Each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom.
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There was still gold and silver in the mountains, And hunger was a more immediate sorrow
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No being can make another one happy.
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Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen to, especially if the shop is not one's own.
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