I want to say to you who think women cannot succeed, we have brought the government of England to this position, that it has to face this alternative: either women are to be killed or women are to have the vote.
Solitary confinement is too terrible a punishment to inflict on any human being, no matter what his crime. Hardened criminals in the men's prisons, it is said, often beg for the lash instead.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Solitary confinement is an inhumane punishment that causes immense suffering, regardless of someone's actions.
Emmeline Pankhurst's quote highlights the moral implications of solitary confinement, suggesting that the psychological and emotional toll it takes on individuals is too severe to justify, even for those who have committed serious crimes. It emphasizes the importance of human dignity and the need for humane treatment of all individuals within the justice system, advocating for a reconsideration of punitive measures that inflict extreme isolation and suffering.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about prison reform, one might quote Pankhurst to emphasize the need for humane treatment in correctional facilities.
More from Emmeline Pankhurst
All quotes →The whole argument with the anti-suffragists, or even the critical suffragist man, is this: that you can govern human beings without their consent.
Justice and judgment lie often a world apart.
Governments have always tried to crush reform movements, to destroy ideas, to kill the thing that cannot die. Without regard to history, which shows that no Government have ever succeeded in doing this, they go on trying in the old, senseless way.
You must make women count as much as men; you must have an equal standard of morals; and the only way to enforce that is through giving women political power so that you can get that equal moral standard registered in the laws of the country. It is the only way.
You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under.
Similar quotes
As for solitude, I cannot understand how certain people seek to lay claim to intellectual stature, nobility of soul and strength of character, yet have not the slightest feeling for seclusion; for solitude, I maintain, when joined with a quiet contemplation of nature, a serene and conscious faith in creation and the Creator, and a few vexations from outside is the only school for a mind of lofty endowment.
I guess I just couldn't see standing there -- alive, talking, thinking, breathing, being -- one second, and dead the next. It really bothered me. Death by violence isn't the same as dying any other way, accident or disease or old age. It just ain't the same.
But the truth is that no person ever understands another, from beginning to end of life, there is no truth that can be known, only the story we imagine to be true, the story they really believe to be true about themselves; and all of them lies.
To practice virtue is to selflessly offer assistance to others, giving without limitation one's time, abilities, and possessions in service, whenever and wherever needed, without prejudice concerning the identity of those in need.
Thall shall keep thy religion to thy selves.
It is fateful and ironic how the lie we need in order to live dooms us to a life that is never really ours.