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I'm always amazed at the American practice of allowing one party to a homosexual act to remain passive--it's so undemocratic. Sexmust be mutual.

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
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
Allowing
Mutual
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Practice
Undemocratic
Party
Homosexuality
American
Homosexual
Always
Amazed
Passive

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A shilling life will give you all the facts.
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Moreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses have no right whatsoever to resist them.
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By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
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Love each other or perish.
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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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There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love.
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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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Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
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Few can remember clearly when innocence came to a sudden end, the moment at which we ask for the first time: Am I loved?
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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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The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.
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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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The friends who met here and embraced are gone, Each to his own mistake.
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A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.
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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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The poet who writes free verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor - dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor.
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Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.
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Of course, Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.
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In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.
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Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind.
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