Oscar Wilde Quote

"As one reads history, not in the expurgated editions written for schoolboys and passmen, but in the original authorities of each time, one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime."

by:	Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Anglo-Irish poet, novelist, writer
Source:	The Soul of Man Under Socialism
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Categories:	Authority, Crime, History, Persecution, Punishment, Tyranny
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-- jim k, Austin, Tx
Perhaps he is upset about his own punishment of going to prison for being homosexual.  -- cal, lewisville, tx
-- warren, olathe
The rule more than exception. Individual sovereigns are brutalized by compelled compliance, license, victimless crimes, larceny with impunity, non-recognition of inalienable rights and all else that is the law of nature and of nature's God.  -- Mike, Norwalk      1
Oscar Wilde, an avowed communist (I could care less that he was light in the heels) was a grouchy old dissident anarchist. I'm surprised that during his time in prison he wasn't thanking his lucky stars (think of a kid in a candy store with no one looking). I think it was Richard Prior who said, "I've been in prison...thank God for prisons." He saw and dealt with some of the worst in our society.  -- GunnyCee, Durham
-- jim k, Austin

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