Quote

Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life

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
Courses
Martyrdom
Course
Dreadful
Running
Spot
Must
Corner
Even
Spots
Life
Dogs
Doggy
Corners
Untidy
Dog
Anyhow

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I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.
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To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.
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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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Alone, alone, about the dreadful wood / Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind, / Dreading to find its Father.
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A false enchantment can all too easily last a lifetime.
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Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
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Now is the age of anxiety.
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About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters.
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The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have Not universal love But to be loved alone.
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Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.
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Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he'll escape.
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Without communication with the dead, a fully human life is not possible.
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There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, ''Did you get an erection?'' If the answer is ''Yes'' from a majority of the twelve, then the book is pornographic.
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What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves.
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The true men of action in our time, those who transform the world, are not the politicians and statesmen, but the scientists
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The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us. I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient. I hope not. I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive.
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The Ogre does what ogres can, Deeds quite impossible for Man, But one prize is beyond his reach, The Ogre cannot master Speech: About a subjugated plain, Among its desperate and slain, The Ogre stalks with hands on hips, While drivel gushes from his lips.
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There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love.
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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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What is a Professor of Poetry? How can poetry be professed?
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