Oppressed Quotes - Page 7

• May our land be a land of liberty, the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed, a name and a praise in the whole Earth, until the last shock of time shall bury the empires of the whole world in one common undistinguished ruin!

  Joseph Warren

  Land, Names, Liberty

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• It cannot be denied that too often the weight of the Christian movement has been on the side of the strong and the powerful and against the weak and oppressed-this, despite the gospel.

  Howard Thurman

  Christian, Strong, Powerful

  Howard Thurman (2014). “A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religious Experience and Public Life”, p.145, Beacon Press

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• Everybody felt his superiority, but nobody felt oppressed by it. Though he had no illusions about people and human affairs, he was full of kindness toward everybody and everything. Never did he give the impression of domineering, always of serving and helping. He was extremely conscientious, without allowing anything to assume undue importance; a subtle humor guarded him, which was reflected in his eyes and in his smile.

  Albert Einstein

  Kindness, Eye, People

  Albert Einstein (2010). “Ideas And Opinions”, p.76, Broadway Books

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• Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Strong, Simple, Heartless

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1874). “The Gods, and Other Lectures”, p.59

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• The hand of benevolence is everywhere stretched out, searching into abuses, righting wrongs, alleviating distresses, and bringing to the knowledge and sympathies of the world the lowly, the oppressed, and the forgotten.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Compassion, Hands, Abuse

  Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852). “Uncle Tom's cabin, or, Life among the lowly”, p.6

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• Resistance! Resistance! No oppressed people have ever secured their liberty without resistance!

  Henry Highland Garnet

  People, Liberty, Resistance

  Henry Highland Garnet (1865). “A Memorial Discourse”, p.51, Gale Cengage Learning

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• True religion always moves us to serve others and to give our lives to see those oppressed find freedom.

  Erwin McManus

  Moving, Giving, True Religion

  Erwin Raphael McManus (2011). “Unleashed: Release the Untamed Faith Within”, p.47, Thomas Nelson

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• To feel oppressed by obligation is only to prove that we are incapable of a proper sentiment of gratitude. To receive favors from the unworthy is simply to admit that our selfishness is superior to our pride. Most men remember obligations, but not often to be grateful for them. The proud are made sour by the remembrance and the vain silent.

  William Gilmore Simms

  Gratitude, Grateful, Pride

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• If given a choice, I would have certainly selected to be what I am: one of the oppressed instead of one of the oppressors.

  Miriam Makeba

  Choices, Oppression, Given

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• In what region of the earth ever so remote from us, in what corner of creation ever so far out of the range of our communication, does not some burden lightened, some bond loosened, some yoke lifted, some labor better remunerated, some new hope for despairing hearts, some new light or new liberty for the benighted or the oppressed, bear witness this day, and trace itself, directly or indirectly, back to the impulse given to the world by the successful establishment and operation of free institutions on this American continent?

  Robert Charles Winthrop

  Communication, Heart, Successful

  Robert Charles Winthrop (1878). “Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions: 1869-1879 [i.e. 1878”

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• The nations which have received and in any way dealt fairly and mercifully with the Jew have prospered, and the nations that have tortured and oppressed him have written out their own curse.

  Olive Schreiner

  Way, Curse, Jew

  Olive Schreiner (2005). “Words in Season: The Public Writings with Her Own Remembrances Collected for the First Time”, Penguin Global

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• In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change.

  Audre Lorde

  Order, Energy, Culture

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.53, Crossing Press

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• I am the greatest advocate of the Constitution of the United States there is on the earth. In my feelings I am always ready to die for the protection of the weak and oppressed in their just rights. The only fault I find with the Constitution is, it is not broad enough to cover the whole ground.

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Freedom, America, Rights

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• An artist represents an oppressed people and makes revolution irresistible.

  Toni Cade Bambara

  Art, People, Revolution

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• The intellectual and moral satisfaction that I failed to gain from the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, the revolutionary methods of Marx and Lenin, the social contract theory of Hobbes, the "back to nature" optimism of Rousseau, and the superman philosophy of Nietzsche, I found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Philosophy, Struggle, People

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1964). “A Martin Luther King Treasury”

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• 

  Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Rights, Order, Support

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1990). “Democracy in America”

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• Oppressed people are treacherous for the simple reason that treachery is both a means of survival and a way to curry favor with one's oppressor.

  Florence King

  Mean, Simple, People

  Florence King (1993). “Southern Ladies & Gentlemen”, p.155, Macmillan

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• The dictator is also the scapegoat; in assuming absolute authority, he assumes absolute guilt; and the oppressed masses, groaning under the yoke, know themselves to be innocent as lambs, while they pray hypocritically for deliverance.

  Mary McCarthy

  Guilt, Yoke, Lambs

  Mary McCarthy (1975). “The company she keeps”, Not Avail

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• We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was 'well timed,' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This 'wait' has almost always meant 'never.' We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied.'

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Years, Painful Experiences, Direct Action

  Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’, www.theatlantic.com. April 16, 1963.

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• The process of liberation brings with it a profound conflict. Having the project be clear is not enough. What is necessary is a spirituality of resistance and of renewed hope to turn ever back to the struggle in the face of the defeats of the oppressed.

  Leonardo Boff

  Struggle, Profound, Resistance

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• Superman! Champion of the oppressed. The physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need.

  Jerry Siegel

  Champion, Needs, Helping

  Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster (2004). “Superman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told”, Dc Comics

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• As long as the family and the myth of the family ... have not been destroyed, women will still be oppressed.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Long, Myth, Stills

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• Oppression works in such a way that it holds every person responsible for the acts of any wrongdoer of the oppressed group.

  Rita Mae Brown

  Groups, Way, Discrimination

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• The oppressed without hope are mysteriously quiet. When the conception of change is beyond the limits of the possible, there are no words to articulate discontent so it is sometimes held not to exist. This mistaken belief arises because we can only grasp silence in the moment in which it is breaking.

  Sheila Rowbotham

  Silence, Limits, Belief

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• In order to create an alternative an oppressed group must at once shatter the self-reflecting world which encircles it and, at the same time, project its own image onto history.

  Sheila Rowbotham

  Self, Order, Speaking Up

  Sheila Rowbotham (1999). “Threads Through Time: Writings on History and Autobiography”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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