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For time is inches And the heart's changes, Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted.

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
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Heart
Time
Futility
Haunted
Inches
Ghost
Changes
Lost
Wanted

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Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
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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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Say this city has ten million souls, Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes: Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.
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History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.
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Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards.
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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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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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As a rule, it was the pleasure-haters who became unjust.
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The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.
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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.
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How happy the lot of the mathematician. He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve.
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A dead man who never caused others to die seldom rates a statue.
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My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.
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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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We honor founders of these starving cities, Whose honor is the image of our sorrow.
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Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
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Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.
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The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have Not universal love But to be loved alone.
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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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Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.
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