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Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.

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
Beings
Acting
Actors
Human
Humans
Sane
Divided
Mad
Necessarily

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We must love one another or die
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To be free is often to be lonely.
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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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Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links, Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks, Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.
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For time is inches And the heart's changes, Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted.
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Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.
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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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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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A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.
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I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.
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Drama began as the act of a whole community. Ideally, there would be no speculators. In practice, every member of the audience should feel like an understudy.
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You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people.
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Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life
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The most important truths are likely to be those which society at that time least wants to hear.
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The nightingales are sobbing in The orchards of our mothers, And hearts that we broke long ago Have long been breaking others Tears are round, the sea is deep: Roll them overboard and sleep.
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It is nonsense to speak of 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures. To a hungry man it is, rightly, more important that he eat than that he philosophize.
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Words are for those with promises to keep.
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You will be a poet because you will always be humiliated.
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The eye likes novelty, but the ear craves familiarity.
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There is a certain kind of person who is so dominated by the desire to be loved for himself alone that he has constantly to test those around him by tiresome behavior what he says and does must be admired, not because it is intrinsically admirable, but because it is his remark, his act. Does not this explain a good deal of avant-garde art?
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