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The older lives like not to be stood in rows or at right angles.

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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Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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A shilling life will give you all the facts.
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A small grove massacred to the last ash, An oak with heart-rot, give away the show: This great society is going to smash They cannot fool us with how fast they go, How much they cost each other and the gods. A culture is no better than its woods.
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We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbor because our natural attitude toward the other is one of either indifference or hostility.
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Life is a picnic on a precipice.
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Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
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In life the loser's score is always zero.
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I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.
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Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup.
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The parlour cars and Pullmans are packed also with scented assassins, salad-eaters who murder on milk.
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Weep for the lives your wishes never led.
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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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