Quote

All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our time, is only a letter written to oneself.

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
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Nature
Letter
Much
Particularly
Good
Letters
Time
Oneself
Sick
Friend
Written
Art
Amuse

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The lights must never go out, The music must always play
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You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.
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It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will.
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The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born.
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Art is born of humiliation.
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A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.
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Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards.
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I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.
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All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie, the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man-in-the-street and the lie of Authority whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State and no one exists alone Hunger allows no choice to the citizen or the police We must love one another or die.
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In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero.
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The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.
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For time is inches And the heart's changes, Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted.
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There was still gold and silver in the mountains, And hunger was a more immediate sorrow
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Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
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The sky is darkening like a stain Something is going to fall like rain And it won't be flowers
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A poet feels the impulse to create a work of art when the passive awe provoked by an event is transformed into a desire to express that awe in a rite of worship.
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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.
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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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A verbal art like poetry is reflective it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.
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Those to whom evil is doneDo evil in return.
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