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Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
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Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.
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You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-obje ct look.
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Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read The hunter's waking thoughts.
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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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If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.
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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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Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup.
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Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate.
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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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To discover how to be human now is the reason we follow this star.
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Does God judge us by appearances? I Suspect that He does.
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Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.
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