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Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
Author
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Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Away
Grave
Children
Burn
Time
Graves
Prove
Fevers
Beauty
Ephemeral
Child
Proves
Individual
Fever
Death
Thoughtful

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And none will hear the postman’s knock Without a quickening of the heart. For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
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We must love one another or die
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There is no love There are only the various envies, all of them sad.
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All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.
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Life is a picnic on a precipice.
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There are three cardinal rules - don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a drink without being asked, and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.
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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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Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance 'till you drop.
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All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: I refuse to be what I am.
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Does God judge us by appearances? I Suspect that He does.
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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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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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Without communication with the dead, a fully human life is not possible.
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The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.
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There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think that , as a rule, a poet should read them.
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Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.
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When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
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You must go to bed with friends or whores, where money makes up the difference in beauty or desire.
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It's frightfully important for a writer to be his age, not to be younger or older than he is. One might ask, What should I write at the age of sixty-four, but never, What should I write in 1940.
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the child unlucky in his little State, Some hearth where freedom is excluded, A hive whose honey is fear and worry, Feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape
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