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There is a certain kind of person who is so dominated by the desire to be loved for himself alone that he has constantly to test those around him by tiresome behavior what he says and does must be admired, not because it is intrinsically admirable, but because it is his remark, his act. Does not this explain a good deal of avant-garde art?

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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The Ogre does what ogres can, Deeds quite impossible for Man, But one prize is beyond his reach, The Ogre cannot master Speech: About a subjugated plain, Among its desperate and slain, The Ogre stalks with hands on hips, While drivel gushes from his lips.
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Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings.
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There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye.
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Learn from your dreams what you lack.
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Precisely because we do not communicate by singing, a song can be out of place but not out of character it is just as credible that a stupid person should sing beautifully as that a clever person should do so.
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There was still gold and silver in the mountains, And hunger was a more immediate sorrow
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To be free is often to be lonely.
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A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it.
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The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience.
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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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Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.
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Cats can be very funny, and have the oddest ways of showing they're glad to see you.
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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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Shall memory restore The steps and the shore, The face and the meeting place.
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One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a person and turn him into an automaton, the surest method is not physical torture, in the strict sense, but simply to keep him awake, i.e., in an existential relation to life without intermission.
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Dogmatic theological statements are neither logical propositions nor poetic utterances. They are ''shaggy dog'' stories they have a point, but he who tries too hard to get it will miss it.
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Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the horizontal one
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To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, is a keen observer of life. The word Intellectual suggests straight away. A man who's untrue to his wife.
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Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.
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Criticism should be a casual conversation.
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