Oppression Quotes - Page 31

• Today, as never before, the issue is clearly defined-liberty and freedom of choice, or oppression and subjugation for the individual and for nations.

  David O. McKay

  Issues, Choices, Liberty

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• Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Majority Rule, Tyranny Of The Majority, Minorities

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1801

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• Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression.

  Audre Lorde

  Gay, Men, Issues

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• There is unity in the oppression. There must be absolute unity and determination, in the response.

  Julian Assange

  Determination, Unity, Response

  "Julian Assange urges US to end 'war on whistleblowers'". www.theguardian.com. August 19, 2012.

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• As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!

  Leon Trotsky

  Beautiful, Strong, Fighting

  "The Prophet Armed : Trotsky, 1879-1921" by Isaac Deutscher, (p. 45), 2003.

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• White women and black men have it both ways. They can act as oppressor or ... and oppression of others.

  Bell Hooks

  Men, White, Black

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• Resistance to oppression is second nature.

  Seneca the Younger

  Resistance

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• The world has got more democracies than ever, and human rights are high on almost every country's agenda. Still, corruption and oppression are far too common threats to the democratic society. And we have seen a dramatic increase, the last 10-15 years, of ethnical conflicts and humanitarian crises with human rights violations as important elements., but also more of corruption. Human rights are praised more than ever - and violated as much as ever.

  Anna Lindh

  Country, Rights, Years

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• Though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.

  Lord Acton

  Pain, Men, Evil

  Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom: Great Event”, p.224, VM eBooks

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• The socialism of centralised state control of industry and production, is dead. It misunderstood the nature and development of a modern market economy. It failed to recognise that the state and public sector can become a vested interest capable of oppression as much as the vested interests of wealth and capital. it was based on a false view of class that became too rigid to explain or illuminate the nature of class division today.

  Tony Blair

  Views, Class, Misunderstood

  Tony Blair (2004). “Tony Blair in His Own Words”, Politicos Pub

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• Twice in my life I have spent two weary and scientifically profitless years seeking evidence to corroborate dearly loved hypotheses that later proved to be groundless; times such as these are hard for scientists-days of leaden gray skies bringing with them a miserable sense of oppression and inadequacy.

  Peter Medawar

  Science, Years, Sky

  Peter Brian Medawar (1979). “Advice to a young scientist”, Harpercollins Childrens Books

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• A materialist feminist approach to women's oppression destroys the idea that women are a 'natural group' . . . What the analysis accomplishes on the level of ideas, practice makes actual at the level of facts: by its very existence, lesbian society destroys the artificial (social) fact constituting women as a 'natural group.' A lesbian society pragmatically reveals that the division from men of which women have been the object is a political one . . .

  Monique Wittig

  Men, Practice, Ideas

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• Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing-sicknes s, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away.

  Henri Nouwen

  Love, War, Emotional

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• If it doesn't happen, the continuing oppression will be met by more resistance from a less tolerant populace which wants a democratic restoration. And that resistance will only invite further oppression.

  Florencio Abad

  Want, Resistance, Restoration

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• Voltaire remarked that it is possible to kill a flock of sheep by witchcraft if you give them plenty of arsenic at the same time. The sheep, in this figure, may well stand for the complacent apologists of capitalism; Marx's penetrating insight and bitter hatred of oppression supply the arsenic, while the labour theory of value provides the incantations.

  Joan Robinson

  Sheep, Giving, Hatred

  Joan Robinson (1967). “Essay on Marxian Economics”, p.22, Springer

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• Anarchism is the abolition of exploitation and oppression of man by man, that is, the abolition of private property and government; Anarchism is the destruction of misery, of superstitions, of hatred. Therefore, every blow given to the institutions of private property and to the government, every exaltation of the conscience of man, every disruption of the present conditions, every lie unmasked, every part of human activity taken away from the control of the authorities, every augmentation of the spirit of solidarity and initiative, is a step towards Anarchism.

  Errico Malatesta

  Lying, Taken, Blow

  Errico Malatesta (2014). “The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader”, p.272, AK Press

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• I say violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America's culture. It is as American as cherry pie. Americans taught the black people to be violent. We will use that violence to rid ourselves of oppression if necessary. We will be free, by any means necessary.

  H. Rap Brown

  Mean, Pie, America

  "Flames of Cambridge Stoked by Decades of Division". "All Things Considered" with Jacki Lyden, www.npr.org. July 29, 2007.

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• Black men and women who refuse to live under oppression are dangerous to white society because they become symbols of hope to their brothers and sisters, inspiring them to follow their example.

  Huey Newton

  Brother, Men, White

  Huey P. Newton (2009). “Revolutionary Suicide: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.158, Penguin

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• I hate war, and I hate having to struggle. I honestly do because I wish I had been born into a world where it was unnecessary. This context of struggle and being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression. Otherwise I would be a sculptor, or a gardener, carpenter - You know, I would be free to be so much more… I guess part of me or a part of who I am, a part of what I do is being a warrior - a reluctant warrior, a reluctant struggler. But I do it, because I’m committed to life.

  Assata Shakur

  Hate, War, Struggle

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• It is a revolution that came to power with its own army and on the ruins of the army of oppression.

  Che Guevara

  Army, Ruins, Revolution

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• At the meeting I argued that the state had given us no alternative to violence. I said it was wrong and immoral to subject our people to armed attacks by the state without offering them some kind of alternative. I mentioned again that people on their own had taken up arms. Violence would begin whether we initiated it or not. Would it not be better to guide this violence ourselves, according to principles where we saved lives by attacking symbols of oppression, and not people? If we did not take the lead now, I said, we would soon be latecomers and followers to a movement we did not control.

  Nelson Mandela

  Taken, Offering, People

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• Anything that you are achieving that undermines and threatens systems of power will meet with oppression. Systems of power don't say 'thank you.' What's important is not to focus all your efforts on the oppression, but to continue the constructive work.

  Noam Chomsky

  Focus, Effort, Important

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• Education, they [philosophers] felt, is the only answer to the always pressing question, to the political question par excellence, of how to reconcile order which is not oppression with freedom which is not license.

  Leo Strauss

  Order, Political, Excellence

  Leo Strauss (2013). “Persecution and the Art of Writing”, p.37, University of Chicago Press

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• History is a record of the incessant struggle of humanity against ignorance and oppression.

  Helen Keller

  Struggle, Ignorance, Humanity

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• The more you try to suppress us, the larger we get.

  Ice T

  Trying

  Song: Freedom of Speech

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