Emmeline Pankhurst Quotes

I would rather be a rebel than a slave.

We have to free half of the human race, the women, so that they can help free the other half.

Better that we should die fighting than be outraged and dishonored... Better to die than to live in slavery.

We woman suffragists have a great mission - the greatest mission the world has ever known. It is to free half the human race, and through that freedom to save the rest.

A defiant deed has greater value than unnumerable thousands of words.

Women had always fought for men, and for their children. Now they were ready to fight for their own human rights. Our militant movement was established.

Trust in God - she will provide.

...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.

What is the use of fighting for a vote if we have not got a country to vote in?

The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics.

Those men and women are fortunate who are born at a time when a great struggle for human freedom is in progress.

The militancy of men, through all the centuries, has drenched the world with blood. The militancy of women has harmed no human life save the lives of those who fought the battle of righteousness.

I am what you call a hooligan-

If men will not do us justice, they shall do us violence.

Justice and judgment lie often a world apart.

I thought I had been a suffragist before I became a Poor Law Guardian, but now I began to think about the vote in women's hands not only as a right but as a desperate necessity.

The whole argument with the anti-suffragists, or even the critical suffragist man, is this: that you can govern human beings without their consent.

I suppose I had always been an unconscious suffragist. With my temperament and my surroundings, I could scarcely have been otherwise.

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.

Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it.

I had to get a close-hand view of the misery and unhappiness of a man made world, before I reached the point where I could successfully revolt against it.

...the moving spirit of militancy is deep and abiding reverence for human life.

[To the heckler who said, 'If you were my wife I'd poison you':] No, you wouldn't. I'd do it myself.

I have never advised the destruction of life, but of property, yes.

...the way to reform has always led through prison.

Our sons and daughters must be trained in national service, taught to give as well as to receive.

I have not personally suffered from the deprivations, the bitterness and sorrow which bring so many men and women to a realisation of social injustice.

How different the reasoning is that men adopt when they are discussing the cases of men and those of women.

I have made speeches urging women to adopt methods of rebellion such as have been adopted by men in every revolution.

I was fourteen years old when I went to my first suffrage meeting. Returning from school one day, I met my mother just setting out for the meeting, and I begged her to let me go along.

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.

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.

Better that we should die fighting than be outraged and dishonored. Better to die than to live in slavery.

Justice and judgement lie often a world apart."~ Emmeline Pankhurst

We have to free half of the human race, the women, so that they can help to free the other half."~ Emmeline Pankhurst

Every man with a vote was considered a foe to woman suffrage unless he was prepared to be actively a friend.

It is obvious to you that the struggle will be an unequal one, but I shall make it - I shall make it as long as I have an ounce of strength left in me, or any life left in me.

The militancy of men, through all the centuries, has drenched the world with blood, and for these deeds of horror and destruction men have been rewarded with monuments, with great songs and epics.