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A writer is a maker, not a man of action: his private life is of no concern to anybody but himself, his family and his friends.

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
Concern
Anybody
Writer
Friends
Family
Action
Maker
Men
Makers
Life
Private

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The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born.
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Drama is based on the Mistake.
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Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
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You will be a poet because you will always be humiliated.
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See without looking, hear without listening, breathe without asking.
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The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.
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The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.
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Had Greek civilization never existed ... we would never have become fully conscious.
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Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
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Long ago the accusations had begun, And suddenly knew by whom it had been judged
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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.
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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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There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair, Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem From insignificance.
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What we have not named as a symbol escapes our notice.
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To discover how to be human now is the reason we follow this star.
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To be happy means to be free, not from pain or fear, but from care or anxiety.
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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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Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards.
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Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
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Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation.
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