Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes.
Henry GeorgeRead
How vainly shall we endeavor to repress crime by our barbarous punishment of the poorer class of criminals so long as children are reared in the brutalizing influences of poverty, so long as the bite of want drives men to crime.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that punishing the poor for their crimes is futile unless we address the root causes of poverty that drive them to crime.
Henry George argues that the cycle of poverty leads to crime, and simply punishing criminals without addressing the systemic issues that create poverty is an ineffective and barbaric solution. He suggests that to truly curb crime, society must first mitigate the harsh realities faced by those in the lower socioeconomic classes, as their desperation can often lead to criminal behavior.
Themes
PovertyCrimePunishmentSocietyJustice
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on social reform, one might quote this to emphasize the need for better support systems for the poor.
More from Henry George
All quotes βThe march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamt.
Henry GeorgeRead
It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.
Henry GeorgeRead
Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over.
Henry GeorgeRead
The protection of the masses has in all times been the pretense of tyranny - the plea of monarchy, of aristocracy, of special privilege of every kind. The slave owners justified slavery as protecting the slaves.
Henry GeorgeRead
So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.
Henry GeorgeRead
Similar quotes
God has put within our lives meanings and possibilities that quite outrun the limits of mortality.
Harry Emerson FosdickRead
... the more one needs God the more perfect he is. To need God is nothing to be ashamed of but is perfection itself. It is the saddest thing in the world if a human being goes through life without discovering that he needs God!
Soren KierkegaardRead
There are things I take sides about, like capital punishment, which it seems to me there is only one side about: it is evil. But there are two or three sides to sexual harassment, and the moment you get into particular cases, there is injustice in every conceivable direction. It's a mess.
A. S. ByattRead
Sometimes he could almost forget that it was there, the way you forget about the sky or the earth underfoot, but there were other times when it seemed as if there was nothing else in the world.
George R. R. MartinRead
He is the way, the truth, and the light, and no one can come back into the presence of our Father in heaven except through him. Christ is God the Son and possesses every virtue in its perfection. Therefore, the only measure of true greatness is how close a man can become like Jesus. That man is greatest who is most like Christ, and those who love him most will be most like him.
Ezra Taft BensonRead
For a moment of night we have a glimpse of ourselves and of our world islanded in a stream of stars - pilgrims of mortality, voyaging between horizons across the eternal seas of space and time.
Henry BestonRead