...we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.
Sylvia PlathRead
Why do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled “enemy?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote questions the morality of society's responses to individual versus collective violence.
Sylvia Plath's quote challenges the ethical inconsistencies in how society treats individuals who commit murder compared to those who engage in mass killing under the guise of war. It provokes thought about the values we assign to human life and the justifications we make for violence, highlighting the hypocrisy in honoring those who kill as warriors while condemning others for murder.
Themes
ViolenceMoralityHypocrisyWarSociety
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the ethics of war and violence.
More from Sylvia Plath
All quotes →The hardest thing, I think, is to live richly in the present, without letting it be tainted & spoiled out of fear for the future or regret for a badly-managed past.
Sylvia PlathRead
It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative--which ever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it.
Sylvia PlathRead
You walked in, laughing, tears welling confused, mingling in your throat. How can you be so many women to so many people, oh you strange girl?
Sylvia PlathRead
I keep wanting to crawl back into the womb.
Sylvia PlathRead
It's the living, the eating, the sleeping that everyone needs. Ideas don't matter so much after all. My three best friends are Catholic. I can't see their beliefs, but I can see the things they love to do on earth. When you come right down to it, I do believe in the freedom of the individual.
Sylvia PlathRead
Similar quotes
When two great saints meet, it's a humbling experience.
Paul MccartneyRead
He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.
C. S. LewisRead
There is no language without deceit.
Italo CalvinoRead
All human knowledge begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence to concepts, and ends with ideas.
Immanuel KantRead
Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.
Isaac Bashevis SingerRead
If we look at the world with a deluded body and mind, we will think that our self is permanent. But if we practice correctly and return to our true self, we will realize that nothing is permanent
DogenRead