35 Quotes by Polly Toynbee

Openness about death has led to greater care about all aspects of dying.

But the single overwhelming reason why jails are bursting is longer sentences given for more crimes.

How do you make any sense of history, art or literature without knowing the stories and iconography of your own culture and all the world's main religions?

In the polls, over 80% support the right to die and have done for the last 25 years. Even 80% of practising Catholics and Protestants support it, plus 76% of Church Times readers.

The best care on earth cannot prevent us all dying in the end.

Thresholds of pain, indignity and incapacity are entirely personal.

Is anyone serious about the politics of happiness? David Cameron dipped a toe in the water, using the word lightly, but denying the hard policies it implies. Labour shies away from it, but should take up the challenge.

What is all that ministerial toil and effort for, if not a constant attempt to allow the greatest number to live in as much happiness as possible?

Feminism is the most revolutionary idea there has ever been. Equality for women demands a change in the human psyche, more profound than anything Marx dreamed of. It means valuing parenthood as much as we value banking.