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Nobody is ever sent to Hell: he or she insists on going there.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
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Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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I will love you forever swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday - Is that still as easy?
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The relation of faith between subject and object is unique in every case. Hundreds may believe, but each has to believe by himself.
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History marched to the drums of a clear idea...
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The only reason the Protestants and Catholics have given up the idea of universal domination is because they've realised they can't get away with it.
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Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity. Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money. Compared with him even Balzac is a romantic.
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It is already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure as in earlier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy. When one recalls how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not cheerful.
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All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality in a statesman.
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Oh, how I wish that Orwell were still alive, so that I could read his comments on contemporary events!
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Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same time prevented from ever clashing.
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A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.
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Sincerity is technique.
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Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.
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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 poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born.
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The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.
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Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
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History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.
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Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay If I could tell you I would let you know.
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Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
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