It is characteristic of this form of punishment, inspired by all that is pitiless, that is to say brutalizing, that gradually, by a process of mindless erosion, it turns a man into an animal, sometimes a ferocious one.
[Le propre des peines de cette nature, dans lesquelles domine ce qui est impitoyable, c’est-à-dire ce qui est abrutissant, c’est de transformer peu à peu, par une sorte de transfiguration stupide, un homme en une bête fauve, quelquefois en une bête féroce.]Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Les Misérables, Part 1 “Fantine,” Book 2 “The Fall,” ch. 7 (1.2.7) (1862) [tr. Denny (1976)]
(Source)
On the degradation of Jean Valjean while serving his hard labor sentence.
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:The peculiarity of punishment of this kind, in which what is pitiless, that is to say, what is brutalising, predominates, is to transform little by little, by a slow stupefaction, a man into an animal, sometimes into a wild beast.
[tr. Wilbour (1862)]The peculiarity of punishments of this nature, in which naught but what is pitiless, that is to say, brutalizing, prevails, is gradually, and by a species of stupid transfiguration, to transform a man into a wild beast, at times a ferocious beast.
[tr. Wraxall (1862)]The peculiarity of pains of this nature, in which that which is pitiless -- that is to say, that which is brutalizing -- predominates, is to transform a man, little by little, by a sort of stupid transfiguration, into a wild beast; sometimes into a ferocious beast.
[tr. Hapgood (1887)]The peculiarity of punishment of this kind, in which the pitiless or brutalizing part predominates, is to transform gradually by a slow numbing process a man into an animal, sometimes into a wild beast.
[tr. Wilbour/Fahnestock/MacAfee (1987)]It is in the nature of such punishment -- in which what prevails is the pitiless, in other words, the brutalizing -- to transform a man little by little, by a kind of stupid transfiguration, into a wild beast, sometimes a ferocious beast.
[tr. Donougher (2013)]
Quotations about:
brutality
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What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine — they are not wounds & blood & fever, spotted & low, or dysentery chronic & acute, cold & heat & famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization & disorder on the part of the inferior — jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior.
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) English social reformer, statistician, founder of modern nursing
Letter to her family (5 May 1855)
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I intend to do what little one man can do to awaken the public conscience, and in the meantime I am not frightened by your menaces. I am not a giant physically; I shrink from pain and filth and vermin and foul air, like any other man of refinement; also, I freely admit, when I see a line of a hundred policemen with drawn revolvers flung across a street to keep anyone from coming onto private property to hear my feeble voice, I am somewhat disturbed in my nerves. But I have a conscience and a religious faith, and I know that our liberties were not won without suffering, and may be lost again through our cowardice. I intend to do my duty to my country.
Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) American writer, journalist, activist, politician
Letter to the Louis D. Oaks, Los Angeles Chief of Police (17 May 1923)
(Source)
Reprinted in his Autobiography (1962).
The practice of terror serves the true believer not only to cow and crush his opponents but also to invigorate and intensify his own faith.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 85 (1951)
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When I found the first camp like that I think I never was so angry in my life. The bestiality displayed there was not merely piled up bodies of people that had starved to death, but to follow out the road and see where they tried to evacuate them so they could still work, you could see where they sprawled on the road. You could go to their burial pits and see horrors that really I wouldn’t even want to begin to describe. I think people ought to know about such things. It explains something of my attitude toward the German war criminal. I believe he must be punished, and I will hold out for that forever.
There are many humorous things in the world, among them the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 21 (1897)
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