"Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline"

This quote by Harriet Beecher Stowe is an effective statement about the ineffectiveness of physical punishment. She is recommending that the more a person undergoes physical punishment, the less reliable it becomes. This is due to the fact that the individual's "sensibilities" or feelings of pain and discomfort become dulled with time. To put it simply, the more an individual is whipped or abused, the more it requires to have the exact same impact. This is similar to the way that a person requires to take increasingly more of a drug like narcotic to accomplish the exact same result. Stowe's quote is an effective reminder of the ineffectiveness of physical punishment and the importance of finding alternative approaches of discipline.