The deterrent influence of law on the lazy man is too absurd to merit consideration.
 Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays (1910). copy citation

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Author Emma Goldman
Source Anarchism and Other Essays
Topic merit influence
Date 1910
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2162/2162-h/2162-h.htm

Context

“those who will go within prison walls and there see what human beings become when deprived of liberty, when subjected to the care of brutal keepers, to coarse, cruel words, to a thousand stinging, piercing humiliations, will agree with us that the entire apparatus of prison and punishment is an abomination which ought to be brought to an end." The deterrent influence of law on the lazy man is too absurd to merit consideration. If society were only relieved of the waste and expense of keeping a lazy class, and the equally great expense of the paraphernalia of protection this lazy class requires, the social tables would contain an abundance for all, including even the occasional lazy individual.” source