W. H. Auden - Quodid

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Picture of W. H. Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden ( WIST-ən HYOO AWD-ən; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes, such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".

W. H. Auden is sometimes cited as:

W.H. Auden

Quotes from W. H. Auden

We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know.

life help responsibility

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?

We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know.

others good generosity

A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.

education talk professors

No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.

music singing opera

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office every day. Not because he likes it, but because he can't think of anything else to do.

Art is born of humiliation.

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.

A poet's hope: to be,
like some valley cheese,
local, but prized elsewhere.

To save your world you asked this man to die.

Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.

If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me.

love equality affection

In order to be a good doctor a man must also have a good character; that is to say, whatever weaknesses and foibles he may have, he must love his fellow human beings in the concrete and desire their good before his own.

love character weakness good desire medicine doctor well-wishing

Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.

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