Quote

Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.

W. H. Auden

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Society
Murder
Abolishes
Place
Victim
Injures
Take
Demand
Atonement
Unique
Abolish
Direct
Grant
Crime
Behalf
Party
Grants
Interest
Forgiveness

More quotes by W. H. Auden

Image
Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores.
W. H. Auden
Image
Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.
W. H. Auden
Image
God bless the USA, so large, so friendly, and so rich.
W. H. Auden
Image
Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.
W. H. Auden
Image
The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.
W. H. Auden
Image
History marched to the drums of a clear idea...
W. H. Auden
Image
In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever.
W. H. Auden
Image
A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.
W. H. Auden
Image
You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.
W. H. Auden
Image
A man is a form of life that dreams in order to act and acts in order to dream.
W. H. Auden
Image
I know nothing, except what everyone knows - if there when Grace dances, I should dance.
W. H. Auden
Image
Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse.
W. H. Auden
Image
To make one, there must be two.
W. H. Auden
Image
To save your world you asked this man to die would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
W. H. Auden
Image
We honor founders of these starving cities, Whose honor is the image of our sorrow.
W. H. Auden
Image
Recipe for the upbringing of a poet: 'As much neurosis as the child can bear.
W. H. Auden
Image
Art is born of humiliation.
W. H. Auden
Image
Oh, how I wish that Orwell were still alive, so that I could read his comments on contemporary events!
W. H. Auden
Image
Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on.
W. H. Auden
Image
The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.
W. H. Auden