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Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse.
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
Language
Competitive
Use
Height
Skyscrapers
Men
Vain
Pours
Excuse
Skyscraper
Blind
Proclaim
Air
Neutral
Strength
Collectives
Full
Collective
More quotes by W. H. Auden
But if a stranger in the train asks me my occupation, I never answer writer for fear that he may go on to ask me what I write, and to answer poetry would embarrass us both, for we both know that nobody can earn a living simply by writing poetry.
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A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.
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Blessed be all metrical rules that forbid automatic responses, force us to have second thoughts, free us from the fetters of Self.
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One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
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The trees encountered on a country stroll Reveal a lot about that country's soul ... A culture is no better than its woods.
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Human language is mythological and metaphorical by nature.
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August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier.
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Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup.
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We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.
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No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
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One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell.
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If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then the best lives for the writer to observe are those in which the role of natural necessity is clearest, namely, the lives of the very poor.
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Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind.
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It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly.
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A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it.
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All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie, the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man-in-the-street and the lie of Authority whose buildings grope the sky: 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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The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.
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Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate.
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The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.
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As a rule, it was the pleasure-haters who became unjust.
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