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We who must die demand a miracle. How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become a finite fact? Nothing can save us that is possible: We who must die demand a miracle.

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
Eternal
Possible
Dies
Temporal
Fact
Finite
Facts
Miracle
Become
Save
Nothing
Infinite
Must
Demand

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Soft as the earth is mankind and both need to be altered.
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Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm.
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O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you've missed.
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We till shadowed days are done, We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock
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The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten.
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Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.
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All pity is self-pity.
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In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.
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I'm always amazed at the American practice of allowing one party to a homosexual act to remain passive--it's so undemocratic. Sexmust be mutual.
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Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.
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The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.
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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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Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.
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Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won't believe again in their own size.
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When one looks into the window of a store which sells devotional art objects, one can't help wishing the iconoclasts had won.
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The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages, what just reason could he give for refusing?
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All the literati keep An imaginary friend.
W. H. Auden
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Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
W. H. Auden
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Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood But noble platitudes - ah, there's a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that's genuinely good From one that's base but merely has succeeded.
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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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