QuoteProject
Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals.
Friedrich Nietzsche
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Nietzsche suggests that society's treatment of criminals is misguided and overly simplistic.

In this quote, Friedrich Nietzsche critiques the societal approach to crime and criminals, pointing out that treating them merely as 'rascals' does not address the underlying issues of morality, justice, and human nature. He implies that our response to criminal behavior lacks depth and fails to consider the complexities of individual circumstances and societal influences.

Themes

CrimeSocietyJusticePhilosophyMoralityHuman Nature

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about criminal justice reform, this quote can highlight the importance of understanding the complexities of criminal behavior.

More from Friedrich Nietzsche

Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Watch them clamber, these swift monkeys! They clamber over one another and thus drag one another into the mud and the depth. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness β€” as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne β€” and often the throne also on mud. Mad they all appear to me, clambering monkeys and overardent. Foul smells their idol, the cold monster: foul, they smell to me altogether, these idolators.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Reason is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
Friedrich NietzscheRead

Similar quotes

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
Francis BaconRead
So, he reasoned, if you can identify the sources of a government's power - people working in civil service, police and judges, even the army - then you know what a dictatorship depends on for its existence.
Gene SharpRead
When death comes, it's just like winter. We don't say, "There ought not to be winter." That the winter season, when the leaves fall and the snow comes, is some kind of defeat, something which we should hold out against. No. Winter is part of the natural course of events. No winter, no summer. No cold, no heat.
Alan WattsRead
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
Thomas JeffersonRead
How do you lose a word? Does it vanish into your memory, like an old toy in a cupboard, and lie hidden in the cobwebs and dust, waiting to be cleaned out or rediscovered?
Amitav GhoshRead
But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat should play with mice.
Charles DarwinRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Friedrich Nietzsche | QuoteProject