Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurstwas a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote. In 1999 Time named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating: "she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back." She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth15 July 1858
accustomed although both british civil con decided divided england finally government hear opinion pro public questions recognise war
From infancy, I had been accustomed to hear pro and con discussions of slavery and the American Civil War. Although the British government finally decided not to recognise the Confederacy, public opinion in England was sharply divided on the questions both of slavery and of secession.
independent thinking government
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
thinking government law
...the Government must not think that they can stop this agitation. It will go on...We are here not because we are law-breakers; we are here in out efforts to become law-makers.
animal government justice
It always seems to me when the anti-suffrage members of the Government criticize militancy in women that it is very like beasts of prey reproaching gentler animals who turn in desperate resistance when at the point of death.
government long unjust
As long as women consent to be unjustly governed, they will be; but directly women say: "We withhold our consent," we will not be governed any longer as long as government is unjust.
government enemy care
There is something that Governments care for far more than human life, and that is the security of property, and so it is through property that we shall strike the enemy. Be militant each in your own way. I incite this meeting to rebellion.
crush government ideas
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.
government idols secret
There is something that governments care for more than human life, and that is the security of property, and so it is through property that we shall strike the enemy.... Those of you who can break windows--break them. Those of you who can still further attack the secret idol of property, so as to make the Government realize that property is as greatly endangered by women's suffrage as it was by the Chartists of old--do so. And my last word is to the Government: I incite this meeting to rebellion!
reform snow time
You have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under, if you are really going to get your reform realized.
discussed education matter question scarcely
My parents, especially my father, discussed the question of my brothers' education as a matter of real importance. My education and that of my sister were scarcely discussed at all.
civil people suffer war
When you have warfare, things happen; people suffer; the noncombatants suffer as well as the combatants. And so it happens in civil war.
englishmen expression honest regarded treated
Window-breaking, when Englishmen do it, is regarded as honest expression of political opinion. Window-breaking, when Englishwomen do it, is treated as a crime.
We are here, not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.
beg criminals hardened human inflict matter men solitary terrible
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.