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The camera may do justice to laughter, but must degrade sorrow.

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
Must
Degrade
Camera
Cameras
Laughter
Sorrow
Justice
May

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In the end, art is small beer. The really serious things are earning one's living so as not to be a parasite and loving one's neighbor.
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Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral
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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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Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading.
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If there are any souls in hell, it is because that is where they insist on being.
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From beginning to end Wilde performed his life and continued to do so even after fame had taken the plot out of his own hands.
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The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order The dance's pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy The tune is catching and will not stop Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop.
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The trees encountered on a country stroll Reveal a lot about that country's soul ... A culture is no better than its woods.
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Life is a picnic on a precipice.
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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
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To have a sense of sin means to feel guilty at there being an ethical choice to make, a guilt which, however good I may become, remains unchanged.
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Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.
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There is no love There are only the various envies, all of them sad.
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Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.
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You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-obje ct look.
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In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero.
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The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born.
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Dance, dance, dance till you drop.
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The element of craftsmanship in poetry is obscured by the fact that all men are taught to speak and most to read and write, while very few men are taught to draw or paint or write music.
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Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.
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