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Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth.

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
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Poet
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University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Faith
Arrive
Truth
Engage
Also
Discussion
Must
Debate
Believe
Field
Good
Capacity
Fields
Whatever

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When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,' he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu.
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Without communication with the dead, a fully human life is not possible.
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It is, for example, axiomatic that we should all think of ourselves as being more sensitive than other people because, when we are insensitive in our dealings with others, we cannot be aware of it at the time: conscious insensitivity is a self-contradiction.
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Though one cannot always Remember exactly why one has been happy, There is no forgetting that one was.
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Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.
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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.
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As biological organisms made of matter, we are subject to the laws of physics and biology: as conscious persons who create our own history we are free to decide what that history shall be. Without science, we should have no notion of equality without art, no notion of liberty.
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The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.
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If we really want to live, we'd better start at once to try.
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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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It's usually the stupid people that develop long illnesses. You need more than indolence and selfishness, you need endurance to make a good patient.
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So long as we think of it objectively, time is Fate or Chance, the factor in our lives for which we are not responsible, and about which we can do nothing but when we begin to think of it subjectively, we feel responsible for our time, and the notion of punctuality arises.
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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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Earth, receive an honored guest William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry.
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Each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom.
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You must go to bed with friends or whores, where money makes up the difference in beauty or desire.
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Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.
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Criticism should be a casual conversation.
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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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