| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 24908 |
| QUOTATION: | Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or “broken heart,” is excuse for cutting off one’s life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935), U.S. feminist, writer. suicide note, Aug. 17, 1935. Quoted in Jilly Cooper and Tom Hartman, “The Happy Dead,” Violets and Vinegar (1980). |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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