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So long as we think of it objectively, time is Fate or Chance, the factor in our lives for which we are not responsible, and about which we can do nothing but when we begin to think of it subjectively, we feel responsible for our time, and the notion of punctuality arises.

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
Lives
Factor
Nothing
Factors
Feel
Arise
Feels
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Long
Responsible
Subjectively
Time
Fate
Punctuality
Think
Begin
Objectively
Thinking
Chance
Arises

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There is a great deal of difference in believing something still, and believing it again.
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Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
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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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All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: I refuse to be what I am.
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Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance 'till you drop.
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Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the differences between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.
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The older lives like not to be stood in rows or at right angles.
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The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born.
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Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores.
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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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Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life
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Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
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Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
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Private faces in public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces in private places.
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To my generation no other English poet seemed so perfectly to express the sensibility of a male adolescent. If I do not now turn to him very often, I am eternally grateful to him for the joy he gave me in my youth.
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No being can make another one happy.
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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.
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Each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom.
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I know nothing, except what everyone knows - if there when Grace dances, I should dance.
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a culture is no better than its woods
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