Radclyffe Hall

“For the sake of all the others who are like you, but less strong and less gifted perhaps, many of them, it's up to you to have the courage to make good.”

“Do try to remember this: even the world's not so black as it is painted"-Valerie to Stephen (pg. 408)”

“this is only the beginning. Many die, many kill their bodies and souls, but they cannot kill the justice of God, even they cannot kill the eternal spirit. From their very degradation that spirit will rise up to demand of the world compassion and justice”

“The doctors cannot make the ignorant think, cannot hope to bring home the sufferings of millions; only one of ourselves can someday do that...It will need great courage but it will be done, because all things must work toward ultimate good; there is no real wastage and no destruction.”

“There is something mankind can never destroy in spite of an unreasoning will to destruction, and this is its own idealism, that integral part of its very being.”

“But now, here she was, very wishful to pray, while not knowing how to explain her dilemma: ‘I’m terribly unhappy, dear, unprobable God—’ would not be a very propitious beginning.”

“What a terrible thing could be freedom. Trees were free when they were uprooted by the wind; ships were free when they were torn from their moorings; men were free when they were cast out of their homes—free to starve, free to perish of cold and hunger.”

“What could she do, bound as she was by the tyranny of silence? She dared not explain the girl to herself...that wilfully selfish tyranny of silence evolved by a crafty old ostrich of a world for its own well-being and comfort. The world hid its head in the sands of convention, so that seeing nothing it might avoid Truth...if silence is golden it is also in this case, very expedient.”