Oppression Quotes - Page 17

• Oppression tries to defend itself by its utility.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Trying, Utility

  Simone de Beauvoir (2011). “The Ethics of Ambiguity”, p.47, Open Road Media

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• [T]he man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Block, Struggle, Men

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• If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Class, Citizens, Taxation

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2009). “The Federalist”, p.130, Harvard University Press

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• Law and freedom must be indivisible partners. For without law, there can be no freedom, only choas and disorder; and without freedom, law is but a cynical veneer for injustice and oppression.

  Ronald Reagan

  Freedom, Law, Cynical

  United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), Ronald Reagan (1984). “Ronald Reagan”

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• A revolution was never fought, throughout history, for ideals. Revolutions were fought for much more concrete things: food, clothes, housing, and to relieve intolerable oppression. … I know of no one, outside of Patrick Henry, willing to die for an abstraction.

  William Powell

  Clothes, Revolution, Concrete

  "The Anarchist Cookbook". Book by William Powell, Chapter Two: "Electronics, Sabotage, and Surveillance", 1971.

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• My job is to confront apathy and confront all the forces that tend to batter each of us down with all kind of oppression, even self-oppression. I consider that the main job of the art that I do- to rattle the cage, wake people up, wake myself up, confront all that would conspire to keep us down.

  Lydia Lunch

  Art, Jobs, Self

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• When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.

  Nelson Mandela

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Freedom

  Nelson Mandela (2011). “Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations”, p.174, Pan Macmillan

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• Not only do we naturalize history, but also consequently we naturalize the social phenomena which express our oppression, making change impossible

  Monique Wittig

  Impossible, Making Changes, Social

  Monique Wittig (1992). “The Straight Mind: And Other Essays”, Beacon Press (MA)

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• The horror of class stratification, racism, and prejudice is that some people begin to believe that the security of their families and communities depends on the oppression of others, that for some to have good lives there must be others whose lives are truncated and brutal.

  Dorothy Allison

  Good Life, Believe, Class

  Dorothy Allison (2013). “Skin: Talking about Sex, Class, and Literature”, p.25, Open Road Media

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• The Naked Socialist connects the ancient order of oppression with the modern order of oppression. The Naked Socialist is a fabulous book and we need to get everyone to read it NOW!

  Morgan Philpot

  Book, Order, Fabulous

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• She was a committed romantic and an anarcha-feminist. This was hard for her because it meant she couldn't blow up beautiful buildings. She knew the Eiffel Tower was a hideous symbol of phallic oppression but when ordered by her commander to detonate the lift so that no-one should unthinkingly scale an erection, her mind filled with young romantics gazing over Paris and opening aerograms that said Je t'aime.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Beautiful, Blow, Paris

  Jeanette Winterson (2013). “Written On The Body”, p.21, Random House

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• It is not a Buddhist approach to say that if everyone practiced Buddhism, the world would be a better place. Wars and oppression begin from this kind of thinking.

  Sulak Sivaraksa

  Buddhist, War, Buddhism

  Sulak Sivaraksa (1992). “Seeds of Peace: A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society”

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• Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Fashion, Atheist, Freedom

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• Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself.

  Charles Dickens

  May, Begets

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• Oppression won't win, the light comes from within.

  Linda McCartney

  Winning, Light

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• All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

  George W. Bush

  Liberty, United States, Hopelessness

  Second Presidential Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 2005

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• A small-state world would not only solve the problems of social brutality and war; it would solve the problems of oppression and tyranny. It would solve all problems arising from power.

  Leopold Kohr

  War, Brutality, World

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• You don’t know what order with freedom means! You only know what revolt against oppression is! You don’t know that the rod, discipline, violence, the state and government can only be sustained because of you and because of your lack of socially creative powers that develop order within liberty!

  Gustav Landauer

  Mean, Government, Order

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• [T]hough individual oppression may now and then proceed fro the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter . . .

  Alexander Hamilton

  People, Justice, Liberty

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.144, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Nature in darkness groans and men are bound to sullen contemplation in the night: restless they turn on beds of sorrow; in their inmost brain feeling the crushing wheels, they rise, they write the bitter words of stern philosophy and knead the bread of knowledge with tears and groans.

  William Blake

  Crush, Philosophy, Writing

  William Blake (1966). “Complete Writings: With Variant Readings”, p.379, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rebellion, Obedience, Tyranny

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• It should not be denied... that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led West.

  Wallace Stegner

  Law, Mind, West

  Wallace Earle Stegner (1987). “The American West as Living Space”, p.22, University of Michigan Press

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• When a family is free of abuse and oppression, it can be the place where we share our deepest secrets and stand the most exposed, a place where we learn to feel distinct without being better, - and sacrifice for others without losing ourselves.

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin

  Trust, Sacrifice, Father Son

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin (1983). “Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier”, McGraw-Hill Companies

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• It is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find themselves at certain hours of the day or night in the depth of certain authentic and waking nightmare states, surrounded by the formidable suction, the formidable oppression of a kind of civic magic which will soon be seen appearing openly in social behavior.

  Antonin Artaud

  Struggle, Night, People

  Antonin Artaud, Susan Sontag (1976). “Antonin Artaud, Selected Writings”, p.486, Univ of California Press

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• Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars may never reach me anymore.

  William Cowper

  War, Successful, Solitude

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