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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
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
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Excluded
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Somehow
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Worry
Hives
More quotes by W. H. Auden
Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.
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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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One can only blaspheme if one believes.
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I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.
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Be subtle, various, ornamental, clever, And do not listen to those critics ever Whose crude provincial gullets crave in books Plain cooking made still plainer by plain cooks.
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In the end, art is small beer. The really serious things are earning one's living so as not to be a parasite and loving one's neighbor.
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Words have no word for words that are not true.
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One of the troubles of our times is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters.
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Cathedrals, luxury liners laden with souls, Holding to the east their hulls of stone.
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Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.
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Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.
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In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.
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All pity is self-pity.
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It is nonsense to speak of 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures. To a hungry man it is, rightly, more important that he eat than that he philosophize.
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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?
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Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.
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One rational voice is dumb: over a grave The household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved. Sad is Eros, builder of cities, And weeping anarchic Aphrodite.
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Adjectives are the potbelly of poetry.
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There are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children.
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Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won't believe again in their own size.
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