I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- In prison, the only certainty is the strong wall and the dragging slowness of each day, regardless of whether laws are right or wrong.
- In plain terms
- Prisoners know only the strong wall and how slow days feel, no matter law's justice.
- What can you take from it?
- Institutional confinement makes the moral quality of law feel irrelevant.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Do you feel time slows under oppression?
- Can law be just within a prison?
Another view
It equates physical confinement with moral ambiguity without nuance.
More from Oscar Wilde
And alien tears will fill for him Pity's long-broken urn, For his mourners will be outcast men, And outcasts always mourn.
Permalink to quote #211 The vilest deeds like poison weeds Bloom well in prison air; It is only what is good in man That wastes and withers there; Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate An…
Permalink to quote #213 And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, None knew so well as I: For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die.
Permalink to quote #210
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