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A poem is a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motorcycle.

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
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Tables
Artifact
Must
Skillfully
Artifacts
Verbal
Constructed
Motorcycle
Poem
Table
Solidly

More quotes by W. H. Auden

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The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again.
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I just try to put the thing out and hope somebody will read it. Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I reply: 'Do you read me?' If they say 'Yes,' I say, 'Do you like it?' If they say 'No,' then I say, 'I don't write for you.'
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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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Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen to, especially if the shop is not one's own.
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Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same time prevented from ever clashing.
W. H. Auden
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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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Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.
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Water is the soul of the Earth.
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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
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As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.
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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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Love each other or perish.
W. H. Auden
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May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that 'faith' is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?
W. H. Auden
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Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.
W. H. Auden
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Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
W. H. Auden
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Let me see what I wrote so I know what I think
W. H. Auden
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Say this city has ten million souls, Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes: Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.
W. H. Auden
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Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral
W. H. Auden
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Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup.
W. H. Auden
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The only reason the Protestants and Catholics have given up the idea of universal domination is because they've realised they can't get away with it.
W. H. Auden