We were equals once when we lay new-born babes on our nurse's knees. We will be equal again when they tie up our jaws for the last sleep.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the inherent equality of humans from birth to death.
Olive Schreiner's quote emphasizes the natural equality of all human beings, suggesting that we are all born equal as infants and will ultimately meet the same fate in death. It serves as a reminder that societal differences and hierarchies are ultimately superficial, and that the essence of our humanity binds us together from the very beginning to the end of our lives.
In practice
In a discussion about social justice, one might quote this to emphasize the fundamental equality of all people.
No woman has the right to marry a man if she has to bend herself out of shape for him. She might wish to, but she could never be to him with all her passionate endeavor what the other woman could be to him without trying. Character will dominate over all and will come out at last.
Slavery may, perhaps, be best compared to the infantile disease of measles; a complaint which so commonly attacks the young of humanity in their infancy, and when gone through at that period leaves behind it so few fatal marks; but which when it normally attacks the fully developed adult becomes one of the most virulent and toxic of diseases, often permanently poisoning the constitution where it does not end in death.
It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins nor curiosities in America when they have their mothers and their manners.
Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women.
The entire universe is God's cosmic motion picture, and that individuals are merely actors in the divine play who change roles through reincarnation; mankind's deep suffering is rooted in identifying too closely with one's current role, rather than with the movie's director, or God.
To show our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end.
It comes so soon, the moment when there is nothing left to wait for.
Nowhere in the world has the use of force alone resolved a conflict.
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