original virtue through disobedience

Man’s original virtue is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting … It is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg … The best amongst the poor are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole.

• selfishness and altruism

linked mentions for "original virtue through disobedience":

1. selfishness and altruism
   from The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891), Oscar Wilde: exaggerated altruistic virtues original virtue through disobedience selfishness is to