Oppression Quotes - Page 33

• The first class opposition that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male.

  Friedrich Engels

  Sex, Men, Class

  Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Philip Gasper (2005). “The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History's Most Important Political Document”, p.184, Haymarket Books

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• Aside from the occasional genocide, oppression, evil and torture, etc., it is inarguable that public policy could be implemented more rapidly in an autocracy.

  David Harsanyi

  Evil, Etc, Genocide

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• You Can't Kill the Spirit resonates with the voices and power of women around the globe who have refused to be either passive or violent but instead act firmly and imaginatively to oppose oppression in its many guises. A wonderful tonic for activists and a treasure for those who teach, these stories bring women's history to life.

  Charlotte Bunch

  Voice, Stories, Treasure

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• In South America euphemism appears to be the grisly preserve of violent power. 'Liberty' was the name of the biggest prison in Uruguay under the military dictatorship, while in Chile one of the concentration camps was called 'Dignity.' It was the self-styled 'Peace and Justice' paramilitary group in Chiapas [Mexico] that in 1997 shot 45 peasants in the back, nearly all of them women and children, as they prayed in a church. What have the souls of the south done over the past few decades to deserve quite so much liberty and dignity and peace and justice?

  Isabel Fonseca

  Children, Military, Past

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• hatred of oppression seems to me so blended with hatred of the oppressor that I cannot separate them. I feel that no other injury could be so hard to bear, so very very hard to forgive, as that inflicted by cruel oppression and prejudice.

  Charlotte Forten Grimke

  Racism, Hatred, Forgiving

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• [Christian rebellion] arises from the doctrine of mankind made in the image of God, and therefore protests against all forms of dehumanization. It sets itself against the social injustices which insult God the Creator, seeks to protect human beings from oppression and longs to liberate them… it protests against every authoritarian regime, whether of the left or of the right, which discriminates against minorities, denies people their civil rights, forbids the free expression of opinions or imprisons people for their views alone.

  John Stott

  Christian, Rights, Views

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• Minorities have never been given their rights. They have always had to wage a political and legal battle to win them.

  Gloria Allred

  Winning, Rights, Political

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• Human beings are a part of the animal kingdom, not apart from it. The separation of "us" and "them" creates a false picture and is responsible for much suffering. It is part of the in-group/out-group mentality that leads to human oppression of the weak by the strong as in ethic, religious, political, and social conflicts.

  Marc Bekoff

  Religious, Strong, Animal

  Marc Bekoff (2013). “Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed: The Fascinating Science of Animal Intelligence, Emotions, Friendship, and Conservation”, p.310, New World Library

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• Learning is not virtue but the means to bring us an acquaintance with it. Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. Let these be your motives to action through life, the relief of the distressed, the detection of frauds, the defeat of oppression, and diffusion of happiness.

  Nathanael Greene

  Integrity, Mean, Relief

  Nathanael Greene, Richard K. Showman, Rhode Island Historical Society (2005). “The papers of General Nathanael Greene”

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• Intolerance of oppression, the desire to be free and develop one personality to its full limits, is not enough to make one an anarchist. That aspiration towards unlimited freedom, if not tempered by a love for mankind and by the desire that all should enjoy equal freedom, may well create rebels who soon become exploiters and tyrants.

  Errico Malatesta

  Tyrants, Personality, Desire

  Errico Malatesta (2015). “Life and Ideas: The Anarchist Writings of Errico Malatesta”, p.17, PM Press

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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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• As a Black lesbian feminist comfortable with the many different ingredients of my identity, and a woman committed to racial and sexual freedom from oppression, I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self. But this is a destructive and fragmenting way to live.

  Audre Lorde

  Meaningful, Acceptance, Self

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• toleration of exploitation, oppression, and injustice points to a condition lying like a pall over the whole of society; it is apathy, an unconcern that is incapable of suffering.

  Dorothee Solle

  Lying, Suffering, Apathy

  Dorothee Sölle (1975). “Suffering”, Fortress Press

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• If you have to be careful because of oppression and censorship, this pressure produces diamonds.

  Tatyana Tolstaya

  Adversity, Pressure, Censorship

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• Black Consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression.

  Steven Biko

  Brother, Men, Essence

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• But it is not really difference the oppressor fears so much as similarity.

  Cherrie Moraga

  Differences, Similarity, Oppressors

  Cherríe Moraga (1983). “Loving in the war years: lo que nunca pasó por sus labios”, South End Pr

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• For a girl, appearance can be a powerful form of oppression. No matter how intelligent a girl may be, no matter her many talents, these attributes are not easily discerned. Brains and talent will never stand up against a girl who is clearly physically attractive.

  Natsuo Kirino

  Girl, Powerful, Intelligent

  FaceBook post by Natsuo Kirino from Oct 23, 2016

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• Within the new self-help books for women, patriarachy and male domination are rarely identified as forces that lead to the oppression, exploitation, and domination of women. Instead, these books suggest that individual relationships between men and women can be changed solely by women making the right choices.

  Bell Hooks

  Book, Men, Self

  bell hooks (2014). “Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black”, p.45, Routledge

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• Intellectual neutrality is not possible in a historical world of exploitation and oppression.

  Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza

  Historical, Intellectual, Neutrality

  Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (2009). “Democratizing Biblical Studies: Toward an Emancipatory Educational Space”, p.14, Westminster John Knox Press

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• They say that oppression engenders hate. They are heard on all sides crying hate hate.

  Monique Wittig

  Hate, Sides, Cry

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• The religions whose theology is least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been consistently less violent and more humane in political practice. Unlike early Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism (all obsessed with time) Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism which has gone hand in hand with political and economic oppression of colored people.

  Aldous Huxley

  Religious, War, Buddhism

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• The right to ridicule is far more important to society than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness - and the other represents oppression.

  Rowan Atkinson

  Views, Important, Ridicule

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• The antagonism between nationalities will lose all its acuteness on the day when neither the iniquitous tendency to oppression and domination, nor the perpetual danger of the threatening preparations for war will exist. ("L'antagonisme entre les nationalités perdra toute son acuité le jour où n'existera plus la tendance inique à l'oppression et à la domination, ni le perpétuel danger des menaçants préparatifs de guerre. », Fr. ")

  African Spir

  War, Son, Preparation

  "Paroles d'un sage: Choix de pensées d'African Spir" ("Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir") by Hélène Claparède-Spir, (p. 54), 1937.

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• Poor and afflicted and oppressed people have faces, and we are required to look squarely into them. We can't love what we won't experience.

  Nancy Mairs

  People, Looks, Poverty

  Nancy Mairs (1993). “Ordinary Time: Cycles in Marriage, Faith, and Renewal”, Beacon Press (MA)

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• Racial oppression of black people in America has done what neither class oppression or sexual oppression, with all their perniciousness, has ever done: destroyed an entire people and their culture.

  Eleanor Holmes Norton

  Class, America, Racism

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