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God may reduce you on Judgment Day to tears of shame, reciting by heart the poems you would have written, had your life been good.

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
Tears
Written
May
Heart
Reciting
Good
Reduce
Would
Poems
Life
Shame
Judgment

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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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Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye.
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The lights must never go out, The music must always play
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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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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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Nobody is ever sent to Hell: he or she insists on going there.
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Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.
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I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.
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All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: I refuse to be what I am.
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Private faces in public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces in private places.
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Hunger allows no choice.
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The eye likes novelty, but the ear craves familiarity.
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When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
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You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people.
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By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
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All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our time, is only a letter written to oneself.
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No hero is mortal till he dies.
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If we really want to live, we'd better start at once to try.
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Water is the soul of the Earth.
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Had Greek civilization never existed ... we would never have become fully conscious.
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