I have watched patients stand and gaze longingly toward the city they in all likelihood will never enter again. It means liberty and life; it seems so near, and yet heaven is not further from hell
Nellie BlyRead
How can a doctor judge a woman's sanity by merely bidding her good morning and refusing to hear her pleas for release? Even the sick ones know it is useless to say anything, for the answer will be that it is their imagination.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote questions the validity of judgment based on superficial interactions without understanding the deeper issues.
Nellie Bly's quote critiques the dismissive attitudes of authority figures, particularly doctors, towards women and their mental health. It highlights how the dismissal of a person's concerns can perpetuate their suffering, as decisions about their well-being are made without truly listening to their experiences. Bly emphasizes the notion that societal norms often invalidate the voices of those deemed 'ill' or 'irrational', leading to a cycle of misunderstanding and oppression.
Themes
JudgmentSanityAuthorityMental HealthVoiceDismissalUnderstandingWomen
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about women's rights and mental health awareness.
More from Nellie Bly
All quotes →'VERY WELL,' I SAID ANGRILY, 'START THE MAN, AND I'LL START THE SAME DAY FOR SOME OTHER NEWSPAPER AND BEAT HIM.'
Nellie BlyRead
I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly - a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God's creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly.
Nellie BlyRead
People in the world can never imagine the length of days to those in asylums. They seemed never ending, and we welcomed any event that might give us something to think about as well as talk of.
Nellie BlyRead
COULD I PASS A WEEK IN THE INSANE WARD AT BLACKWELL'S ISLAND? I SAID I COULD AND I WOULD. AND I DID.
Nellie BlyRead
I shuddered to think how completely the insane were in the power of their keepers, and how one could weep and plead for release, and all of no avail, if the keepers were so minded.
Nellie BlyRead
Similar quotes
I think there's a large worry in queer communities about imitating straight people, when queerness has its own identity and maybe can be a radical force that should be dismantling stuff that locks people into structures.
Ezra FurmanRead
God's ways do not change... Still he shows his freedom and lordship by discriminating between sinners, causing some to hear the gospel while others do not hear it, and moving some of those who hear it to repentance while leaving others in their unbelief, thus teaching his saints that hew owes mercy to none and that it is entirely of his grace, not at all through their own effort, that they themselves have found life.
J. I. PackerRead
You discarded most of the lies along the way but held on to the one that said life mattered.
Stephen KingRead
There's a phenomenology of being sick, one that depends on temperament, personal history, and the culture which we live in.
Siri HustvedtRead
In Sri Lanka a well-told lie is worth a thousand facts.
Michael OndaatjeRead
Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.
Swami VivekanandaRead