Oppression Quotes - Page 9

• Let us never cease to feel compassion for those in want. Let us never tire of helping victims of injustice and oppression. He who puts his faith in the restoration of human dignity cannot be wrong.

  Poul Hartling

  Compassion, Justice, Restoration

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• The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of oppression, if they are strong enough, whether by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  Strong, Patriotic, Government

  "Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant". Book by Ulysses S. Grant. Chapter 16, www.gutenberg.org. 1885.

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• Close investigation will show that the primary cause of oppression and injustice, of unrighteousness, irregularity and disorder, is the people's lack of religious faith and the fact that they are uneducated.

  Abdu'l-Bahá

  Religious, Educational, People

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• The parent-child relationship in the home usually reflects the objective cultural conditions of the surrounding social structure. If the conditions which penetrate the home are authoritarian, rigid, and dominating, the home will increase the climate of oppression. As these authoritarian relations between parents and children intensify, children in their infancy increasingly internalize the paternal authority.

  Paulo Freire

  Children, Philosophy, Educational

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.110, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• Oppression involves a failure of the imagination: the failure to imagine the full humanity of other human beings.

  Margaret Atwood

  Diversity, Imagination, Humanity

  Margaret Atwood (1984). “Second words: selected critical prose”, Beacon Press, 1984

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• Those who have suffered, who have known poverty or oppression, are generally the most prone to kindness. Perhaps it is well to endure some misery if only to learn this lesson.

  Arthur Lynch

  Kindness, Suffering, Lessons

  Arthur Lynch (1921). “Moods of Life: Popular Psychological Studies of Affairs of Every Day”

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• [The disarming of citizens] has a double effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind: a habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral [force]; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression.

  Joel Barlow

  Gun, Men, Hands

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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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• The cost in human lives and suffering is so high that we all have to work to end violence and oppression once and for all. We have to proclaim that every human being is equal, in dignity, in freedom -and, as the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, we have to live in a spirit of brotherhood.

  Federico Mayor Zaragoza

  Rights, Brotherhood, Suffering

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• While women across the globe have many differences - language, culture, environment - our similarities are undeniable, and the impact of abuse and oppression affects us all.

  Carre Otis

  Impact, Differences, Abuse

  "Speaking for the Silent" by Carre Otis, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 7, 2012.

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• Fear is the greatest form of oppression. The best way to rise up in protest is to live your life to its fullest!

  Megan McCafferty

  Live Your Life, Way, Form

  Megan McCafferty (2007). “Second Helpings: A Jessica Darling Novel”, p.164, Broadway Books

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• Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Country, America, Suffering

  P. J. O'Rourke (2015). “Thrown Under the Omnibus: A Reader”, p.1145, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible. There's nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible.

  Desmond Tutu

  Hands, People, Injustice And Oppression

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• Most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former. Real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Real, Government

  Thomas Jefferson (1861). “Correspondence”, p.353

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• A single good government becomes... a blessing to the whole earth, its welcome to the oppressed restraining within certain limits the measure of their oppressions. But should even this be counteracted by violence on the right of expatriation, the other branch of our example then presents itself for imitation: to rise on their rulers and do as we have done.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Blessing, Government, Example

  Thomas Jefferson (2016). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 12: 1 September 1817 to 21 April 1818”, p.20, Princeton University Press

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