Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
958
AUTHOR:
Charles Péguy (1873–1914)
QUOTATION:
We said that a single injustice, a single crime, a single illegality, particularly if it is officially recorded, confirmed, a single wrong to humanity, a single wrong to justice and to right, particularly if it is universally, legally, nationally, commodiously accepted, that a single crime shatters and is sufficient to shatter the whole social pact, the whole social contract, that a single legal crime, a single dishonorable act will bring about the loss of one’s honor, the dishonor of a whole people. It is a touch of gangrene that corrupts the entire body.
ATTRIBUTION:
CHARLES-PIERRE PÉGUY, in reference to the Dreyfus trial, Men and Saints, trans. Anne and Julian Green, p. 11 (1944).
