One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Not necessarily, Oscar: a person is not the sum of his past, but his ability to become somebody.

I disagree with this quote.
Everybody changes, and continue to regret past events.
However, the past does in some sense 'define' who one is, but yet you still cannot judge them - embrace an open mind.

Unfortunately, in western culture, or rather in the USA (as far as I know) ones past is summed up in a device known as a credit rating.

Financial analysts deduced, long ago that ones past demonstrates behavioral tendencies, judgement, decision making.

Right or wrong it is the way corporate commerce is done.

In my opinion Wilde is only correct in part.

This sentence doesn't consider the intentions and the intentions are the future in the past, agreeing with who supports the opinion that everything becomes immediately past.

Don't judge. Let God.

[Though I love the debate that has been generated by Oscar Wilde's quote, I will switch gears from these interesting insights by our delightful crew to discuss Oscar's downfall. Oscar irresistibly entered into a love relationship with the much younger, far more dissolute son of the aristocrat. The dissolute young homosexual's father, the Marquees of Queensberry, accused Oscar of homosexuality, a behavior criminalized in the British legal system. Arrogantly and stupidly, Oscar in turn accused the Marquees of libel. No longer able to be supported by the buoyancy of his third leg, the court was unable to be bewitched by his wit. Wilde was found guilty and spent the next two years in prison. Upon release he lost everything: his two sons, his wife, his fortune, his friends, and his previous ability to sustain his lifestyle. Left an outcast by society, Oscar's only desire upon being released from goal was to enter a Catholic retreat in London. Upon the Church's refusal Oscar fall apart. No longer able to be published, his money making plays that were running closed, his engagements in American cancelled, Oscar spends his last three years in Paris where he dies in a cheap hotel room delirious from absinthe. What lesson can one take from this sad ending to a man so gifted? Leave it to the Bible to provide the answer: Beware of praise even if it is grounded in reality for praise puffs up pride and pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.

When social behavior is left to the Bible, everyone stays in the closet.

Wilde's life and significant work left him out of step with his time, firmly
casting him in step with ours.

first sentence agreed. second is a question whether if one should be judged or not!!

For once we see the solemn side of Oscar Wilde, perhaps in the words of one of his characters.
One's past is truly a neat little record of what one is.
Whether this is the only way by which people should be judged, on the merit of their deeds or thoughts, that is another matter.
But what matters most is the timing for the retrospective view of one's past, which determines the angle of the view for any judgment.

Oscar Wilde was not one to shy away from the paradox and inconsistency. Here is another of his quotes, his written words, let us not knock ourselves out, it comes from
"The Soul of Man under Socialism" :

"The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are."

not true

The excerpt from "The Ideal Husband" (1895) a play in two acts which contains the quotation:
""LADY CHILTERN
That woman who has just gone out, Mrs. Cheveley, as she calls herself now. She seemed to taunt me with it. Robert, I know this woman. You don't. We were at school together. She was untruthful, dishonest, an evil influence on every one whose trust or friendship she could win. I hated, I despised her. She stole things, she was a thief. She was sent away for being a thief. Why do you let her influence you?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Gertrude, what you tell me may be true, but it happened many years ago. It is best forgotten! Mrs. Cheveley may have changed since then. No one should be entirely judged by their past.

LADY CHILTERN
[Sadly.] One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
That is a hard saying, Gertrude!

LADY CHILTERN
It is a true saying, Robert. And what did she mean by boasting that she had got you to lend your support, your name, to a thing I have heard you describe as the most dishonest and fraudulent scheme there has ever been in political life?"" End quote.

It was a little blackmail for something Sir Robert had done many years before. Something from his past that made him what he was, literally.

TFD definition: "judge (jŭj)
v. judged, judg·ing, judg·es
v.tr.
1. To form an opinion or estimation of after careful consideration: judge heights; judging character.

Gradyone said "When social behavior is left to the Bible, everyone stays in the closet." What a brilliant insight and so grounded in reality. But what I loved most from it was I burst out laughing and I needed to laugh more than anything else at that moment. Thank you, Gradyone. Maybe one day I can do the same for you.

Thanks, Margs. I get lucky to tickle someone's funny bone now and then. It was your reference to the passage from Proverbs that got me thinking about how Wilde was mistreated
after he came out of the closet. The law he was convicted of breaking was staunchly OT biblical in its definition of lewdness. The three years in prison he endured permanently
damaged his health and certainly bruised, if not broke, his spirit.