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If it form the one landscape that we the inconstant ones Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly Because it dissolves in water.
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
Form
Dissolves
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Landscape
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Water
Inconstant
More quotes by W. H. Auden
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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Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.
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Money cannot buy the fuel of love but is excellent kindling.
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What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one's gifts?
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a culture is no better than its woods
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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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An honest self-portrait is extremely rare because a man who has reached the degree of self-consciousness presupposed by the desire to paint his own portrait has almost always also developed an ego-consciousness which paints himself painting himself, and introduces artificial highlights and dramatic shadows.
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How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.
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One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a person and turn him into an automaton, the surest method is not physical torture, in the strict sense, but simply to keep him awake, i.e., in an existential relation to life without intermission.
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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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Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.
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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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Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.
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Some books are undeservedly forgotten none are undeservedly remembered.
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Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.
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There is no love There are only the various envies, all of them sad.
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Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance 'till you drop.
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The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money, still less, as is apt to happen when these are abandoned, of race, but of age.
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Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye.
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Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse.
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