Oppressed Quotes - Page 16

• Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is a commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause--the cause of liberation.

  Paulo Freire

  Commitment, Love Is, Matter

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.89, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• You are persecuted and despised. It were better that a person should be the oppressed than that he should be the oppressor; and fitter that he should be a victim to the frailty of human instincts than that he should be powerful and crush the flowers of life and disfigure the beauties of feeling with his desire.

  Khalil Gibran

  Crush, Powerful, Flower

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• Representation is a crucial location of struggle for any exploited and oppressed people asserting subjectivity and decolonization of the mind.

  Bell Hooks

  Struggle, People, Mind

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• Fellow Americans, our duty is before us tonight. Let us go forward, determined to serve selflessly a vision of man with God, government for people, and humanity at peace. For it is now our task to tend and preserve, through the darkest and coldest nights, that "sacred fire of liberty" that President Washington spoke of two centuries ago, a fire that tonight remains a beacon to all oppressed of the world, shining forth from this kindly, pleasant, greening land we call America.

  Ronald Reagan

  Night, Men, Fire

  United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), Ronald Reagan (1982). “Ronald Reagan”

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• Freedom is the very essence of our nation. To be sure, ours is not a perfect nation. But even with our troubles, we remain the beacon of hope for oppressed peoples everywhere. Never give up the fight for freedom - a fight which, though it may never end, is the most ennobling known to man.

  Ronald Reagan

  Giving Up, Fighting, Men

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• Poor little Foal of an oppressed race! I love the languid patience of thy face.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Love, Animal, Race

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Derwent Coleridge (1857). “The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge”, p.25

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• Everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Jon Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? Yeah.

  Rick Sanchez

  Running, Country, Mean

  "Rick Sanchez fired by CNN after comments about Jews and Jon Stewart" by Richard Adams, www.theguardian.com. October 1, 2010.

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• Legitimate revolution must be led by, made by those who have been most oppressed: black, brown, yellow, red, and white women-with men relating to that the best they can.

  Robin Morgan

  Men, Yellow, White

  Robin Morgan (2014). “The Word of a Woman: Feminist Dispatches”, p.37, Open Road Media

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• My white skin disgusts me. My passport disgusts me. They are the marks of an insufferable privilege bought at the price of others' agony. If I could peel myself inside out I would be glad. If I could become part of the oppressed I would be free.

  Robin Morgan

  Freedom, Agony, White

  Robin Morgan (2014). “The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism”, p.183, Open Road Media

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• Art is on the side of the oppressed. Think before you shudder at the simplistic dictum and its heretical definition of the freedom of art. For if art is freedom of the spirit, how can it exist within the oppressors?

  Edith Wharton

  Art, Freedom, Thinking

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• Science fiction isn’t just thinking about the world out there. It’s also thinking about how that world might be—a particularly important exercise for those who are oppressed, because if they’re going to change the world we live in, they—and all of us—have to be able to think about a world that works differently.

  Samuel R. Delany

  Exercise, Thinking, Important

  FaceBook post by Samuel R. Delany from Jun 26, 2013

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• All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power. If you want to govern the people, you must place yourself below them. If you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them. The Master is above the people, and no one feels oppressed. She goes ahead of the people, and no one feels manipulated. The whole world is grateful to her. Because she competes with no one, no one can compete with her.

  Laozi

  Leadership, Grateful, Humility

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• The communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrown of overweening cupidity and selfishness which assiduously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks with wide disorder the citadel of misrule.

  Grover Cleveland

  Integrity, Justice, Political

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• The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.

  Nelson Mandela

  Taken, Journey, Finals

  Nelson Mandela, Mandla Langa (2017). “Dare Not Linger: The Presidential Years”, p.4, Pan Macmillan

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• Politicians are always saying that they are in support of Iraqi citizens and now they are increasing the price of petrol. We were oppressed for 35 years. We are like a sick patient who is in need of care, and they are increasing prices

  Muhammad Ali

  Years, Sick, Support

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• Thus my learning is not my own; it belongs to the unlearned and is the debt I owe themMy wisdom belongs to the foolish, my power to the oppressed. Thus my wealth belongs to the poor, my righteousness to the sinners.

  Martin Luther

  Debt, Wealth, Foolish

  Martin Luther, Helmut T. Lehmann (1986). “Luther's Works: Lectures on Galatians”

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• But almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or sub oppressors. The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradiction of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them to be men is to be oppressors

  Paulo Freire

  Struggle, Men, Existential

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.45, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• You don't pick black actors or black directors because they are black. You pick them because they are good. If you lend somebody 50 million dollars you want you're money back. You don't care if they are oppressed. You just want you're money back.

  Denzel Washington

  Black, Directors, Dollars

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• Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved!

  Saint Augustine

  Evil, Lazy, Taught

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• It is startling to see how the oppressed almost invariably shape themselves in the image of their hated oppressors.

  Eric Hoffer

  Shapes, Hated, Oppressors

  Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

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• The behavior of the oppressed is a prescribed behavior, following as it does the guidelines of the oppressor.

  Paulo Freire

  Doe, Behavior, Guidelines

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.33, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• The behavior and reactions of the oppressed, which lead the oppressor to practice cultural invasion, should evoke from the revolutionary a different theory of action. What distinguishes revolutionary leaders from the dominant elite is not only their objectives, but their procedures.

  Paulo Freire

  Practice, Revolutionary Leaders, Invasion

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.167, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• In order for the oppressed to unite they must first cut the umbilical cord of magic and myth which binds them to the world of oppression; the unity which links them to each other must be of a different nature.

  Paulo Freire

  Cutting, Order, Magic

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.124, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• How can the oppressed, as divided, unauthentic beings, participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation? Only as they discover themselves to be 'hosts' of the oppressor can they contribute to the midwifery of their liberating pedagogy. As long as they live in the duality in which to be is to be like and to be like is to be like the oppressor, this contribution is impossible. The pedagogy of the oppressed is an instrument for their critical discovery that both they and their oppressors are manifestations of dehumanization.

  Paulo Freire

  Discovery, Long, Impossible

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.48, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• Prominent and influential editors, accustomed to deal with politicians, men of an infinitely lower grade, say, in their ignorance,that he acted "on the principle of revenge." They do not know the man. They must enlarge themselves to conceive of him.... They have got to conceive of a man of faith and of religious principle, and not a politician or an Indian; of a man who did not wait till he was personally interfered with or thwarted in some harmless business before he gave his life to the cause of the oppressed.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Religious, Revenge, Ignorance

  Henry David Thoreau (2007). “My Thoughts Are Murder to the State: Thoreau's Essays on Political Philosophy”, p.47, David M Gross

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