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The law cannot forgive, for the law has not been wronged, only broken only persons can be wronged. The law can pardon, but it can only pardon what it has the power to punish.

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
Forgive
Forgiving
Broken
Law
Cannot
Power
Wronged
Persons
Punish
Pardon

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One rational voice is dumb: over a grave The household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved. Sad is Eros, builder of cities, And weeping anarchic Aphrodite.
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We honor founders of these starving cities, Whose honor is the image of our sorrow.
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God bless the USA, so large, so friendly, and so rich.
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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 everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do.
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the child unlucky in his little State, Some hearth where freedom is excluded, A hive whose honey is fear and worry, Feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape
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Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.
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Money cannot buy the fuel of love but is excellent kindling.
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Every high C accurately struck demolishes the theory that we are the irresponsible puppets of fate or chance.
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Private faces in public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces in private places.
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Does God judge us by appearances? I Suspect that He does.
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Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he'll escape.
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A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.
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I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.
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Drama began as the act of a whole community. Ideally, there would be no speculators. In practice, every member of the audience should feel like an understudy.
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A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.
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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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Criticism should be a casual conversation.
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