W. H. Auden

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.

Accurate scholarship can
unearth the whole offence
from luther untill noe
that has driven a culture mad.
From what occured at linz
what huge imago made
a psychopathic god.
i and the public know
what all schoolchildren learn
those to whom evil is done
do evil in return.

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

Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were.

False enchantment can last a lifetime.

Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table.

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

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.

To save your world you asked this man to die;
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?

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

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

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.

When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.

Acts of injustice done
Between the setting and the rising sun
In history lie like bones, each one.