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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
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
American
Homosexual
Always
Amazed
Passive
Allowing
Mutual
Remain
Practice
Undemocratic
Party
Homosexuality

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Fate succumbs many a species: one alone jeopardises itself.
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Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the differences between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.
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Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
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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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Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.
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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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Dogmatic theological statements are neither logical propositions nor poetic utterances. They are ''shaggy dog'' stories they have a point, but he who tries too hard to get it will miss it.
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I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade
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All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality in a statesman.
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Drama is based on the Mistake.
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Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.
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In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a unique perspective on the world, a member of a class of one.
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Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.
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Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading.
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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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We honor founders of these starving cities, Whose honor is the image of our sorrow.
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Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind.
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Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the horizontal one
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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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Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.
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