Oppressed Quotes - Page 11

• Their [the Jews] rotten and unbending stiffneckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone.

  John Calvin

  Rotten, Misery, Pity

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• This notion that's peddled by the religious right - that they are oppressed is not true. Sometimes it's a cynical ploy to move their agenda ahead. The classic example being that somehow secularists are trying to eliminate Christmas, which strikes me as some kind of manufactured controversy.

  Barack Obama

  Religious, Moving, Cynical

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• The workmen's revolution, with the terrors of destruction and murder, not only threatens us, but we have already been living upon its verge during the last thirty years, and it is only by various cunning devices that we have been postponing the crisis. The hatred and contempt of the oppressed people are increasing, and the physical and moral strength of the richer classes are decreasing: the deceit which supports all this is wearing out, and the rich classes have nothing wherewith to comfort themselves.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Years, Class, People

  "What is to be done?". Book by Leo Tolstoy, p. 262, 1899.

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• Set about doing good to somebody. Put on your hat and go and visit the sick and poor of your neighborhood; inquire into their circumstances and minister to their wants. Seek out the desolate and afflicted and oppressed. . . I have often tried this method, and have always found it the best medicine for a heavy heart.

  Howard Stern

  Heart, Medicine, Sick

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• It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed.

  Nelson Mandela

  Lonely, Years, White

  Nelson Mandela (2013). “Long Walk To Freedom”, p.404, Hachette UK

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• The hell of human suffering, evil and oppression is paved with good intentions. The men who have most injured and oppressed humanity, who have most deeply sinned against it, were according to their standards and their conscience good men; what was bad in them, what wrought moral evil and cruelty, treason to truth and progress, was not at all in their intentions, in their purpose, in their personal character, but in their opinions.

  Robert Briffault

  Character, Men, Evil

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• A young man is stirred and stimulated by the consciousness of how much depends upon his own exertions: a young girl is oppressed by it.

  Elizabeth Missing Sewell

  Girl, Men, Consciousness

  Elizabeth Missing Sewell (1866). “Principles of Education, Drawn from Nature and Revelation, and Applied to Female Education in the Upper Classes”, p.406

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• The oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressors." "They call themselves ignorant and say the 'professor' is the one who has knowledge and to whom they should listen." "Almost never do they realize that they, too, 'know things' they have learned in their relations with the world.

  Paulo Freire

  Ignorant, Cost, World

  Paulo Freire (1998). “The Paulo Freire Reader”, Burns & Oates

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• Fighting, and the employment of force, even for the right cause, will not bring about good results. The oppressed who have right on their side, must not take that right by force; the evil would continue. Hearts must be changed. The rich must wish to give! Life in man should be like a flame, warming all with whom it comes into contact. The spiritually awakened are like to bright torches in the sight of God, they give light and comfort to their fellows.

  Abdu'l-Bahá

  Heart, Fighting, Men

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• The nature of women's oppression is unique: women are oppressed as women, regardless of class or race; some women have access to significant wealth, but that wealth does not signify power; women are to be found everywhere, but own or control no appreciable territory; women live with those who oppress them, sleep with them, have their children - we are tangled, hopelessly it seems, in the gut of the machinery and way of life which is ruinous to us.

  Andrea Dworkin

  Children, Sleep, Unique

  "Woman Hating". Book by Andrea Dworkin, 1974.

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• Women have been oppressed for so long in any industry, it just takes time for a shift to happen to create more equality in any field, but I feel like it's slowly happening now. It's just things don't change over night. It's the same for racism, homophobia, xenophobia etc. If you think back even just 15 years and see how different people's mentalities were then, think how much more progress and equality we cab reach in another 15 years.

  Maya Jane Coles

  Night, Thinking, Racism

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• There was a thrust to raise the consciousness of the people and we argued that in order to free ourselves we must be ourselves, Africans, a people oppressed and in struggle. And we must be self-conscious about this.

  Maulana Karenga

  Struggle, People, Consciousness

  Source: lasentinel.net

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• The object of a dialogical-liberterian action is not to 'dislodge' the oppressed from a mythological reality in order to 'bind' them to another reality. On the contrary, the object of dialogical action is to make it possible for the oppressed, by perceiving their adhesion, to opt to transform an unjust reality." "In order for the oppressed to unite they must first cut the umbilical cord of magic and myth which binds them to the world of oppression; the unity which links them to each other must be of a different nature.

  Paulo Freire

  Cutting, Reality, Order

  "Pedagogy of the Oppressed". Book by Paulo Freire, Chapter 4, Unity for Liberation, 1968.

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• Acknowledging the realities of structural and institutional racism is hard for conscionable white people. It might ask them to consider how they're personally implicated, or have gained from systems that have oppressed and rejected others. It might require them to take a next step. It's easier to say, "I don't see race," or to dismiss the Black Lives Matter movement as structureless and theatrical than to embrace and promote its most basic premise, which is to believe that black lives have worth.

  Emily Raboteau

  Believe, Reality, Racism

  Source: therumpus.net

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• You have to start looking in the mirror and saying, 'this is who I am, this is what I am and this is how I'm going to be' and start demanding more from yourself. In spite of everything that this system has thrown at us, we still have to live at the end of the day. We still have to find purpose and find ways to prosper and make a profit so you have to find ways to stand on your own two feet and fulfill your potential as a black man or black woman on this planet no matter how marginalized or oppressed you may be.

  Charlamagne Tha God

  Men, Black, Purpose

  Source: lasentinel.net

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• The racism is so profound and the recognition - the kind of deep recognition that you have to humiliate. It's not about to killing or torture. It's to humiliate. So the oppressed feel degraded. And both the oppressed understand and the oppressors understand. It's constant.

  Noam Chomsky

  Racism, Profound, Recognition

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Music has as many roles as people make it. I traveled to Burma once years ago to witness the people's struggle for democracy, meet some people and learn some stuff. And I had this incredible experience over and over again in the Burmese jungle or refugee camps or health clinics with very oppressed, very devastated people. I show up, and I'm white and I'm American and I'm privileged and I have an experience that these people can't fathom and vice versa. There was this huge chasm when I met people for all good reasons.

  Ani DiFranco

  Struggle, People, Democracy

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• The oppressed always learned from and copied the oppressor. When the tables were turned, the stage was set for another round of revenge and violence -- roles reversed. And reversed and reversed ad nauseam.

  Frank Herbert

  Revenge, Tables, Violence

  Frank Herbert (1986). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, Berkley Trade

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• People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Competition, Wish

  Bertrand Russell (2002). “The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The Public Years, 1914-1970”, p.215, Psychology Press

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• The oppressed never free themselves - they do not have the necessary strengths.

  Clare Boothe Luce

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• To see eternity was to be exposed to eternity's whims, oppressed by endless dimensions.

  Frank Herbert

  Dimensions, Eternity, Endless

  Frank Herbert (2008). “Dune Messiah”, p.156, Penguin

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• White Americans must be made to understand the basic motives underlying Negro demonstrations. Many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations are boiling inside the Negro, and he must release them. It is not a threat but a fact of history that if an oppressed people's pent-up emotions are not nonviolently released, they will be violently released.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Frustration, White, People

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

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• The rights of no oppressed people have ever yet been obtained by a voluntary act of justice on the part of the oppressors.

  Martin Delany

  Rights, People, Justice

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• Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.

  Mark Twain

  Kings, Bread, Earth

  Mark Twain (1992). “Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches & Essays: 1852-1890”, Library of America

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• It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power - power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate.

  Eric Hoffer

  Want, Oppressors

  "War and Conflict Quotations: A Worldwide Dictionary". Book by Jean Freestone Thomsett and Michael Thomsett, 1997.

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