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

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The Americans are violently oral. That's why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all -- isn't respected in the least. Even the American passion for laxatives can be explained as an oral manifestation. They want to get rid of any unpleasantness taken in through the mouth.
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The older lives like not to be stood in rows or at right angles.
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One can only blaspheme if one believes.
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We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.
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No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.
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Earth, receive an honored guest William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry.
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The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages, what just reason could he give for refusing?
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To be happy means to be free, not from pain or fear, but from care or anxiety.
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Beloved, we are always in the wrong, Handling so clumsily our stupid lives, Suffering too little or too long, Too careful even in our selfish loves: The decorative manias we obey Die in grimaces round us every day, Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice Which utters an absurd command - Rejoice.
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The lights must never go out, The music must always play
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The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.
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Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings.
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Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on.
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Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he'll escape.
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Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.
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