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You will be a poet because you will always be humiliated.

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
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Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Always
Humiliated
Poet
Poetry

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Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.
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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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No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
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Fate succumbs many a species: one alone jeopardises itself.
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A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.
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A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.
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In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.
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All I have is a voice.
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Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he'll escape.
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Harrow the house of the dead look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.
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The most important truths are likely to be those which society at that time least wants to hear.
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Encased in talent like a uniform, The rank of every poet is well known They can amaze us like a thunderstorm, Or die so young, or live for years alone.
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If age, which is certainly Just as wicked as youth, look any wiser, It is only that youth is still able to believe It will get away with anything, while age Knows only too well that it has got away with nothing.
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In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or today.
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Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.
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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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What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.
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The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.
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Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
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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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