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All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: I refuse to be what I am.

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
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Content
Refuse
Meaning
Whatever
Wish
Unvarying
Apparent
Wishes

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As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.
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Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth.
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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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There are three cardinal rules - don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a drink without being asked, and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.
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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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Sincerity is technique.
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Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation.
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All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall, And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all.
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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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Fate succumbs many a species: one alone jeopardises itself.
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Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.
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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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I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters.
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Dance, dance, dance till you drop.
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We are all here on earth to help others what on earth the others are here for I don't know.
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