Notes from a Dead House

Without work they would have destroyed each other like spiders in a jar.

Quoted on September 28, 2011

The work did not seem very heavy, and it was not until long afterwards that I understood that it was hard labour not because it was hard and unending, but because it was compulsory and unavoidable. The peasant works harder and longer--at times far into the night in summer, but he works for himself, for a sensible purpose, and suffers far less than the convict who does a compulsory task that is utterly useless to him. It once occurred to me that if it were desired to crush a man completely, to punish him so severely that even the most hardened murderer would quail, it would only be needed to make his work absolutely pointless and absurd.

Quoted on September 28, 2011