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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
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Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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Those who hate to go to bed fear death those who hate to get up fear life.
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Art is born of humiliation.
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Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read The hunter's waking thoughts.
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A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting he must also believe it to be true.
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One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
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Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.
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The friends who met here and embraced are gone, Each to his own mistake.
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Out on the lawn I lie in bed, Vega conspicuous overhead.
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The Ogre does what ogres can, Deeds quite impossible for Man, But one prize is beyond his reach, The Ogre cannot master Speech: About a subjugated plain, Among its desperate and slain, The Ogre stalks with hands on hips, While drivel gushes from his lips.
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Sexual fidelity is more important in a homosexual relationship than in any other. In other relationships there are a variety of ties. But here, fidelity is the only bond.
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Long ago the accusations had begun, And suddenly knew by whom it had been judged
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One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a person and turn him into an automaton, the surest method is not physical torture, in the strict sense, but simply to keep him awake, i.e., in an existential relation to life without intermission.
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Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
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A poet feels the impulse to create a work of art when the passive awe provoked by an event is transformed into a desire to express that awe in a rite of worship.
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Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.
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Moreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses have no right whatsoever to resist them.
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Poetry makes nothing happen.
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Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, Dance, Dance 'till you drop.
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Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
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To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith
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