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Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.
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
Figure
Disease
Swiftly
Figures
Softly
Behinds
Shocking
Behind
Spot
Comes
Spots
Skin
Skins
More quotes by W. H. Auden
Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
W. H. Auden
The most difficult problem in personal knowledge, whether of oneself or of others, is the problem of guessing when to think as a historian and when to think as an anthropologist.
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Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.
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To be happy means to be free, not from pain or fear, but from care or anxiety.
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Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.
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As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.
W. H. Auden
A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting he must also believe it to be true.
W. H. Auden
Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same time prevented from ever clashing.
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Some books are undeservedly forgotten none are undeservedly remembered.
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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.
W. H. Auden
A person incapable of imaging another world than given to him by his senses would be subhuman, and a person who identifies his imaginary world with the world of sensory fact has become insane.
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See without looking, hear without listening, breathe without asking.
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You will be a poet because you will always be humiliated.
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Had Greek civilization never existed ... we would never have become fully conscious.
W. H. Auden
The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.
W. H. Auden
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.
W. H. Auden
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.
W. H. Auden
Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
W. H. Auden
There is a great deal of difference in believing something still, and believing it again.
W. H. Auden
One can only blaspheme if one believes.
W. H. Auden
