Oppressed Quotes - Page 4

• It could never be a correct justification that, because the whites oppressed us yesterday when they had power, that the blacks must oppress them today because they have power.

  Robert Mugabe

  Yesterday, Zimbabwe, Today

  663 Copy quote

• Jesus is the starving, the parched, the prisoner, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the dying. Jesus is the oppressed, the poor. To live with Jesus is to live with the poor. To live with the poor is to live with Jesus.

  Jean Vanier

  Jesus, Sick, Dying

  7 Copy quote

• In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Hate, War

  18 Copy quote

• There remains an experience of incomparable value . . . to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled ---- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer . . . to look with new eyes on matters great and small.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Peace, Eye, Perspective

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1998). “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Writings”

  22 Copy quote

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• Those who oppressed us described us as the Dark Continent!

  Thabo Mbeki

  Dark, Swag, Continents

  16 Copy quote

• It means a great deal to those who are oppressed to know that they are not alone. And never let anyone tell you that what you are doing is insignificant.

  Desmond Tutu

  Ignorance, Mean, Rights

  44 Copy quote

• Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building.

  Paulo Freire

  Burning, Building, Treats

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.46, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining.

  Saul Bellow

  Oppression, Accuracy, Suppression

  The Adventures of Augie March ch. 1 (1953)

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• The character of the tribunes was, in every respect, different from that of the consuls. The appearance of the former was modest and humble; but their persons were sacred and inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than for action. They were instituted to defend the oppressed, to pardon offences, to arraign the enemies of the people, and, when they judged it necessary, to stop, by a single word, the whole machine of government.

  Edward Gibbon

  Humble, Character, Government

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages”, p.106, e-artnow

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• But this inestimable privilege was soon violated: with the knowledge of truth the emperor imbibed the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the catholic church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the heretics, who presumed to dispute his opinions or to oppose his commands, were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a seasonable application of moderate severities might save those unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation.

  Edward Gibbon

  Men, History, Catholic

  Edward Gibbon (1837). “The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire”, p.292

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• China not only fights for her own independence, but also for the liberation of every oppressed nation. For us, the Atlantic Charter and President Roosevelts proclamation of the Four Freedoms for all peoples are corner-stones of our fighting faith.

  Chiang Kai-shek

  Fighting, Independence, President

  "The voice of China; speeches of Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek between December 7, 1941, and October 10, 1943, including some recent messages to British leaders and the British people". Book by Hutchinson & co. ltd, 1944.

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• We live in a world with serious class complexes. It is one thing to be a college student with loan debts and another thing to be just dirt poor for your entire life. The challenge is to come up with more complex understandings of where we are, more global awareness of what connects Americans with what is happening with suffering and oppressed people all around the world.

  Bell Hooks

  College, Class, People

  Source: bknation.org

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• I seem indeed to hear that voice, from Him Who gathers together those who are broken, and welcomes the oppressed: I have given you up, and I will help you. In a little wrath I struck you, but with everlasting mercy I will glorify you (cf. Isa. 54:8). The measure of His kindness exceeds the measure of His discipline.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Kindness, Voice

  10 Copy quote

• Being a victim of oppression in the United States is not enough to make you revolutionary, just as dropping out of your mother's womb is not enough to make you human. People who are full of hate and anger against their oppressors or who only see Us versus Them can make a rebellion but not a revolution. The oppressed internalize the values of the oppressor. Therefore, any group that achieves power, no matter how oppressed, is not going to act differently from their oppressors as long as they have not confronted the values that they have internalized and consciously adopted different values.

  Grace Lee Boggs

  Mother, Hate, Long

  254 Copy quote

• When the desire of wealth is taking hold of the heart, let us look round and see how it operates upon than whose industry or fortune has obtained it. When we find them oppressed with their own abundance, luxurious without pleasure, idle without ease, impatient and querulous in themselves, and despised or hated by the rest of mankind, we shall soon be convinced that if the real wants of our condition are satisfied, there remains little to be sought with solicitude or desired with eagerness.

  Samuel Johnson

  Real, Heart, Desire

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• So I'm very happy if my words can ever inspire or empower someone who considers themselves an oppressed minority. We are all the same and we all want the same things: the right to be happy, to be just who we want to be and to love who we want to love.

  Beyonce Knowles

  Empowering, Inspire, Minorities

  "Beyonce's Out Cover Story: 10 Quotes That Give Us Life" by John Walker, www.mtv.com. April 08, 2014.

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• It is said that this is a man's world, and sometimes, it is. For every casket girl that was saved, countless others were not. But women are more resilient than given credit for. And some women, well, let's just say their oppressors had better watch out. I, too, am resilient, and I'm tired of being oppressed.

  Rebecca

  Girl, Tired, Men

  7 Copy quote

• In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face, and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their smile is my smile.

  Henri Nouwen

  Pain, Blood, Hands

  7 Copy quote

• A tolerant person should not be harrased. The subject or the ruled ones generally is loyal to the ruler. The people tak to revolt when they are helpless. The duty of the ruler is that his humble people mey not tak to revolt being suppressed by his bad polity. Considering the forbearance of the subject, do not ill behave with them so that they may feel oppressed.

  Chanakya

  Humble, People, Political

  21 Copy quote

• The artist takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it, he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art.

  Ernest Becker

  Art, Personality, World

  Ernest Becker (1997). “The Denial of Death”, p.184, Simon and Schuster

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• a poet will even face death when he sees his people oppressed.

  Carolina Maria de Jesus

  People, Faces, Poet

  Carolina Maria de Jesus (2005). “Beyond All Pity”

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• all theology knowingly or not is by definition always engaged for or against the oppressed.

  Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza

  Religion, Definitions, Theology

  Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (1984). “Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation”, Beacon Press (MA)

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• Throughout my life, I have always supported the human being in his humanism and I have supported the oppressed. I think it is the person's right to live his freedom and it is her and his right to face the injustice imposed on each by revolting against it, using his practical, realistic and available means to end the oppressor's injustice toward him, whether it is an individual, a community, a nation, or a state; whether male or female.

  Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah

  Mean, Thinking, Community

  12 Copy quote

• The women are, of course, the biggest single group of oppressed people in the world and, if we are to believe the Book of Genesis, the very oldest.

  Chinua Achebe

  Believe, Book, People

  Chinua Achebe (1988). “Anthills of the Savannah”, p.98, Heinemann

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• Oppressed people, whatever their level of formal education, have the ability to understand and interpret the world around them, to see the world for what it is, and move to transform it.

  Ella Baker

  Moving, People, World

  440 Copy quote