Oppression Quotes - Page 13

• Empires are synonymous with centralized if occasionally schismatized hierarchical power structures in which influence is restricted to an economically privileged class retaining its advantages through usually a judicious use of oppression and skilled manipulation of both the society's information dissemination systems and its lesser as a rule nominally independent power systems. In short, it's all about dominance.

  Iain Banks

  Independent, Class, Use

  Iain M. Banks (2008). “The Player Of Games: A Culture Novel”, p.67, Hachette UK

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• We may see how miraculously God defends our people, and makes us hope that, in spite of the malice of our enemies, He will bring our cause to a good and happy end, to the advancement of His glory and the deliverance of so many Christians from unjust oppression.

  William the Silent

  Christian, People, Enemy

  "William the Silent". Book by Frederic Harrison, p. 62, 1897.

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• Rastafarianism and reggae music have always kind of resonated with me. Those ideas of redemption, liberation and overcoming oppression through music, weed and community. Fighting evil through love and music, I think it's just a really powerful idea.

  Conor Oberst

  Weed, Powerful, Fighting

  Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

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• There are levels of outrage, and there's a point at which you can't be trespassed upon anymore.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Racism, Levels, Discrimination

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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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• 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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• 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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• An avant-garde man is like an enemy inside a city he is bent on destroying, against which he rebels; for like any system of government, an established form of expression is also a form of oppression. The avant-garde man is the opponent of an existing system.

  Eugene Ionesco

  Men, Expression, Cities

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• Cruelty, if we consider it as a crime, is the greatest of all; if we consider it as a madness, we are equally justifiable in applying to it the readiest and the surest means of oppression.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Mean, Madness, Crime

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• The real causes of terrorism are not poverty and oppression per se, but rather the bankruptcy of materialist ideologies, like Neo-Conservatism, which promise much but deliver little. The central doctrine of Neo-Conservatism is "democratic capitalism." This is the ultimate oxymoron, because in practice the political pluralism that should underlie democracy cannot exist in a climate of economic plutocracy.

  Robert Dickson Crane

  Real, Practice, Political

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• Freed from the sublimated form which was the very token of its irreconcilable dreams - a form which is the style, the language in which the story is told - sexuality turns into a vehicle for the bestsellers of oppression. ... This society turns everything it touches into a potential source of progress and of exploitation, of drudgery and satisfaction, of freedom and of oppression. Sexuality is no exception.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Dream, Style, Progress

  "One-Dimensional Man" by Herbert Marcuse, (p. 77-78), 1964.

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• To answer oppression with appropriate resistance requires knowledge of two kinds: in the first place, self-knowledge by the victim, which means awareness that oppression exists, an awareness that the victim has fallen from a great height of glory or promise into the present depths; secondly, the victim must know who the enemy is. He must know his oppressor's real name, not an alias, a pseudonym, or a nom de plume!

  Chinua Achebe

  Real, Mean, Names

  Chinua Achebe (2011). “The Education of a British-Protected Child”, p.67, Penguin UK

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• Strikes and boycotting are akin to war, and can be justified only on grounds analogous to those which justify war, viz., intolerable injustice and oppression.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  War, Injustice And Oppression, Justified

  "Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes". Book by Rutherford B. Hayes, 1922 - 1926.

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• After Bruno's death, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Descartes seemed about to take the leadership of human thought... in promoting an evolution doctrine as regards the mechanical formation of the solar system... but his constant dread of persecution, both from Catholics and Protestants, led him steadily to veil his thoughts and even to suppress them. ...Since Roger Bacon, perhaps, no great thinker had been so completely abased and thwarted by theological oppression.

  Andrew Dickson White

  Catholic, Veils, Half

  "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom". Book by Andrew Dickson White, Vol.1, Ch.1: The Visible Universe, p. 57, 1896.

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• The power of citizenship as a shield against oppression was widely known from the example of Paul 's Roman citizenship, which sent the centurion scurrying to his higher-ups with the message: "Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman".

  Robert H. Jackson

  Men, Example, Shields

  "Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160, 182". Judicial opinion, 1941.

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• Lasting peace is sought, it is essential to adopt international measures to improve the lot of the masses. The welfare of the entire human race must replace hunger and oppression. People of the world must be taught to give up envy, avarice and rancour.

  Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

  Giving Up, Race, People

  "I. Milletlerarası Gençlik Kongresi" by Selçuk University, (p. 19), 1988.

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• We are opposed to all cruelty, so as advocates of non-violence, opponents of oppression, people who abhor the cruelty inherent in slaughtering we say the only ethical way to consume flesh is to pick up the carcass of an animal who has died naturally or been killed accidentally, say by being hit by a car, and eat that.

  Ingrid Newkirk

  Animal, Car, People

  India Together, July 2000.

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• All socialism involves slavery.... That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labors under coercion to satisfy another's desires. The relation admits of many gradations. Oppressive taxation is a form of slavery of the individual to the community as a whole. The essential question is -- How much is he compelled to labor for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labor for his own benefit?

  Herbert Spencer

  Responsibility, Community, Desire

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• Women themselves condition their daughters to serve the system of male primacy. If a daughter challenges it, the mother will generally defend the system rather than her daughter. These mothers, victims themselves, have unwittingly become wounded wounders. Women need to attack culture's oppression of women, for there truly is a godlike socializing power that induces women to "buy in" or collude, but we also need to confront our own part in accepting male dominance and take responsibility where appropriate.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Mother, Daughter, Women

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• According to my observations, mankind are among the most easily tamable and domesticable of all creatures in the animal world. They are readily reducible to submission, so readily conditionable (to coin a word) as to exhibit an almost incredibly enduring patience under restraint and oppression of the most flagrant character. So far are they from displaying any overweening love of freedom that they show a singular contentment with a condition of servitorship, often showing a curious canine pride in it, and again often simply unaware that they are existing in that condition.

  Albert J. Nock

  Character, Pride, Animal

  "Memoirs of a Superfluous Man" by Albert J. Nock, (p. 314), 1943.

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• Violent resistance against the power of the state is the last resort of the minority in its effort to break loose from the oppression of the majority. ... The citizen must not be so narrowly circumscribed in his activities that, if he thinks differently from those in power, his only choice is either to perish or to destroy the machinery of state.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Thinking, Effort, Choices

  Ludwig Von Mises (1962). “The free and prosperous commonwealth: an exposition of the ideas of classical liberalism”

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• Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Passion, Views, Law

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• Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Ideas, People, Intellectual

  "In Quest of Democracy". Essay by Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991.

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• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that 'if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression', human rights should be protected by the rule of law. That just laws which uphold human rights are the necessary foundation of peace and security would be denied only by closed minds which interpret peace as the silence of all opposition and security as the assurance of their own power.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Peace, Men, Law

  "In Quest of Democracy". Essay by Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991.

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• The artivist (artist +activist) uses her artistic talents to fight and struggle against injustice and oppression – by any medium necessary. The artivist merges commitment to freedom and justice with the pen, the lens, the brush, the voice, the body, and the imagination. The artivist knows that to make an observation is to have an obligation.

  M. K. Asante

  Struggle, Commitment, Fighting

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