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I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.
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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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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Polite
More quotes by W. H. Auden
A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.
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In life the loser's score is always zero.
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Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.
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Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.
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Laziness acknowledges the relation of the present to the past but ignores its relation to the future impatience acknowledge its relation to the future but ignores its relation to the past neither the lazy nor the impatient man, that is, accepts the present instant in its full reality and so cannot love his neighbour completely.
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To be free is often to be lonely.
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To have a sense of sin means to feel guilty at there being an ethical choice to make, a guilt which, however good I may become, remains unchanged.
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A poem is a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motorcycle.
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There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye.
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From beginning to end Wilde performed his life and continued to do so even after fame had taken the plot out of his own hands.
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As a rule, it was the pleasure-haters who became unjust.
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In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a unique perspective on the world, a member of a class of one.
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A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
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Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate.
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The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.
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A writer is a maker, not a man of action: his private life is of no concern to anybody but himself, his family and his friends.
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Clear, unscaleable ahead, Rise the mountains of instead From whose cold, cascading streams None may drink except in dreams
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No being can make another one happy.
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In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required.
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Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood But noble platitudes - ah, there's a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that's genuinely good From one that's base but merely has succeeded.
W. H. Auden
