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We till shadowed days are done, We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock
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
Labor
Conscious
Duty
Shadowed
Days
Weep
Wrong
Clock
Done
Till
Must
Sing
Work
Devil
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The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.
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You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-obje ct look.
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Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral
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There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye.
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We are all here on earth to help others what on earth the others are here for I don't know.
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Hunger allows no choice.
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So long as we think of it objectively, time is Fate or Chance, the factor in our lives for which we are not responsible, and about which we can do nothing but when we begin to think of it subjectively, we feel responsible for our time, and the notion of punctuality arises.
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To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.
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The relation of faith between subject and object is unique in every case. Hundreds may believe, but each has to believe by himself.
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To make one, there must be two.
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The sky is darkening like a stain Something is going to fall like rain And it won't be flowers
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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.
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Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master's commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too personal style.
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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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It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
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Left to itself the masculine imagination has very little appreciation for the here and now it prefers to dwell on what is absent, on what has been or may be. If men are more punctual than women, it is because they know that, without the external discipline of clock time, they would never get anything done.
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The eye likes novelty, but the ear craves familiarity.
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Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.
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The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.
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Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.
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