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To discover how to be human now is the reason we follow this star.

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
Humans
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More quotes by 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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A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
W. H. Auden
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If we really want to live, we'd better start at once to try.
W. H. Auden
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We till shadowed days are done, We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock
W. H. Auden
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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.
W. H. Auden
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The relation of faith between subject and object is unique in every case. Hundreds may believe, but each has to believe by himself.
W. H. Auden
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In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.
W. H. Auden
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Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession.
W. H. Auden
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No being can make another one happy.
W. H. Auden
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters How well they understood Its human position how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.
W. H. Auden
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All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation.
W. H. Auden
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In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start.
W. H. Auden
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What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one's gifts?
W. H. Auden
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The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.
W. H. Auden
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Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance 'till you drop.
W. H. Auden
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We honor founders of these starving cities, Whose honor is the image of our sorrow.
W. H. Auden
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Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.
W. H. Auden
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There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, ''Did you get an erection?'' If the answer is ''Yes'' from a majority of the twelve, then the book is pornographic.
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
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In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.
W. H. Auden