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Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity. Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money. Compared with him even Balzac is a romantic.

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
Roles
Balzac
Money
Frees
Best
Understands
Country
Novelists
Even
Compared
Necessity
Romantic
Role
Trollope

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Of course, Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.
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It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too much. I can see myself doing it. In England, one feels all the social restraints holding one back. But here, anything can happen.
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Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
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Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.
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Private faces in public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces in private places.
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Learn from your dreams what you lack.
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I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.
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There is a great deal of difference in believing something still, and believing it again.
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Poetry makes nothing happen.
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We are all here on earth to help others.
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Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading.
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The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.
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There was still gold and silver in the mountains, And hunger was a more immediate sorrow
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A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.
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In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero.
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It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will.
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Few can remember clearly when innocence came to a sudden end, the moment at which we ask for the first time: Am I loved?
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Beloved, we are always in the wrong, Handling so clumsily our stupid lives, Suffering too little or too long, Too careful even in our selfish loves: The decorative manias we obey Die in grimaces round us every day, Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice Which utters an absurd command - Rejoice.
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Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.
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Drama began as the act of a whole community. Ideally, there would be no speculators. In practice, every member of the audience should feel like an understudy.
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