Oppression Quotes - Page 20

• The air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe, and so everyone who breathes it becomes free. Everyone who comes to this island is entitled to the protection of English law, whatever oppression he may have suffered and whatever may be the colour of his skin.

  William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield

  War, Law, Islands

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• The truth is that every intelligent man, as you know, dreams of being a gangster and of ruling over society by force alone. As it is not so easy as the detective novels might lead one to believe, one generally relies on politics and joins the cruelest party.What does it matter, after all, if by humiliating one's mind one succeeds in dominating every one? I discovered in myself sweet dreams of oppression.

  Albert Camus

  Dream, Sweet, Party

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Fall”, p.55, Vintage

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• History has a long-range perspective. It ultimately passes stern judgment on tyrants and vindicates those who fought, suffered, were imprisoned, and died for human freedom, against political oppression and economic slavery.

  Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

  Peace, Freedom, Tyrants

  Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1949). “Labor's Own William Z. Foster: A Communist's Fifty Years of Working-class Leadership and Struggle”, New York : New Century Publishers

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• Yes, what we are doing is probably mad, and probably it is good and necessary all the same. It is not a good thing when man overstrains his reason and tries to reduce to rational order matters that are susceptible of rational treatment. Then there arise ideals such as those of the Americans or of the Bolsheviks. Both are extraordinarily rational, and both lead to a frightful oppression and impoverishment of life, because they simplify it so crudely. The likeness of man, once a high ideal, is in process of becoming a machine-made article. It is for madmen like us, perhaps, to ennoble it again.

  Hermann Hesse

  Men, Order, Mad

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• I am opposed to authority, that egg of misery and oppression; I am opposed to it largely for what it does to those who exercise it.

  Patrick O'Brian

  Exercise, Eggs, Doe

  Patrick O'Brian (1990). “Post Captain (Vol. Book 2) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels)”, p.234, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Dissident Natan Sharansky writes that there are two kinds of states - “fear societies” and “free societies.”… The two societies make up two kinds of consciousness. The consciousness derived of oppression is despairing, fatalistic, and fearful of inquiry. It is mistrustful of the self and forced to trust external authority. It is premised on a dearth of self-respect. It is cramped …
  In contrast, the consciousness of freedom … is one of expansiveness, trust of the self, and hope. It is a consciousness of limitless inquiry … It builds up in a citizen a wealth of self-respect.

  Naomi Wolf

  Writing, Self, Two

  "Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries". Book by Naomi Wolf, September 16, 2008.

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• I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dream, Oasis, Justice

  "Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech is the greatest oration of all time" by Sean O'Grady, www.independent.co.uk. April 3, 2018.

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• We have learned that change cannot come through war. War is not a feasible tool to use in fighting against the oppression we face. War has caused more problems. We cannot embrace that path.

  Rigoberta Menchu

  Peace, War, Fighting

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• A people armed and free, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression.

  James Madison

  Strength, Peace, Ambition

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• It is an unfortunate personal tragedy. However, when compared to the vast ocean of the collective tragedy faced by my people, my illness is merely a pebble. I am deeply sad that I am crippled by this illness, unable to contribute anything substantial towards the alleviation of the immense suffering and oppression of my people.

  Anton Balasingham

  Ocean, Sadness, People

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• As much as the world has an instinct for evil and is a breeding ground for genocide, holocaust, slavery, racism, war, oppression, and injustice, the world has an even greateer instinct for goodness, rebirth, mercy, beauty, truth, freedom and love.

  Desmond Tutu

  Dance, War, Evil

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• All human beings have a right, and duty, to be joyful. Anything that thwarts this spiritual human right goes against the very purpose of human being. Spirituality mandates us to wage a relentless war to eradicate these forces of oppression and disempowerment.

  Agnivesh

  God, Spiritual, War

  Agnivesh's Right Livelihood Award Acceptance Speech, www.rightlivelihoodaward.org. December 31, 2004.

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• Ours is an age in which thousands are driven daily from their homelands by the unforgiving brutalities of war, terrorism, political oppression, starvation, disease, economic piracy, and the relentless suffocation of that singular breath which makes human beings individuals.

  Aberjhani

  War, Political, Humanity

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• When indeed Religion is kindled into enthusiasm, its force like that of other passions is increased by the sympathy of a multitude. But enthusiasm is only a temporary state of Religion, and whilst it lasts will hardly be seen with pleasure at the helm. Even in its coolest state, it has been much oftener a motive to oppression than a restraint from it.

  James Madison

  Passion, Religion, Atheism

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• We are a conspiracy of hope and we are pressing back against the strong tide of oppression which for centuries has been the legacy of those of us who are labelled with mental illness. We are refusing to reduce human beings to illnesses.

  Patricia Deegan

  Inspirational, Strong, Tides

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• If you grow up in a WEIRD society, you become so well educated in the ethic of autonomy that you can detect oppression and inequality even where the apparent victims see nothing wrong.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Growing Up, Ethics, Victim

  Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.109, Vintage

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• That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Government, Liberty, Citizens

  Ezra Taft Benson (1969). “An enemy hath done this”

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• The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

  Steven Biko

  Historical, Mind, Weapons

  "White Racism and Black Consciousness" (paper presented at workshop sponsored by Abe Bailey Institute of Interracial Studies),Cape Town, South Africa, Jan. 1971

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• That only a few, under any circumstances, protest against the injustice of long-established laws and customs, does not disprove the fact of the oppressions, while the satisfaction of the many, if real only proves their apathy and deeper degradation.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Real, Law, Long

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1898). “Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897”, p.318, UPNE

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• There is no Hierarchy of Oppressions

  Audre Lorde

  Hierarchy

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• Anger and humor are like the left and right arm. They complement each other. Anger empowers the poor to declare their uncompromising opposition to oppression, and humor prevents them from being consumed by their fury.

  James H. Cone

  Empowering, African American, Empowerment

  James H. Cone (1992). “Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare”, p.333, Orbis Books

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• While we sometimes feel and have felt in days that are past and gone, to complain because we meet with oppression, persecution, and affliction, yet I wish to say to my brethren and sisters that these things are the heritage of the Saints of God. … I have never read of the people of God in any dispensation passing through life, as the sectarian world would say, on flowery beds of ease, without opposition of any kind.

  Wilford Woodruff

  Past, People, Wish

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• What I see is not a world of male oppression and female victimization, but an internation conspiracy by women to keep from men the knowledge of men's own frailty. A strange maternal protectiveness is at work.

  Camille Paglia

  Men, Males, Female

  Camille Paglia (2011). “Vamps & Tramps: New Essays”, p.47, Vintage

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• We affirm that the true story of capitalism is now beginning, because capitalism is not a system of oppression only, but is also a selection of values, a coordination of hierarchies, a more amply developed sense of individual responsibility.

  Benito Mussolini

  Responsibility, Stories, Hierarchy

  "Through Fascism to World Power: A History of the Revolution in Italy" by Ion Smeaton Munro, Books for Libraries Press, 1933.

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• This pedagogy makes oppression and its causes objects of reflection by the oppressed, and from that reflection will come their necessary engagement in the struggle for their liberation. And in the struggle this pedagogy will be made and remade

  Paulo Freire

  Struggle, Reflection, Feminist

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.34, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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