Home / Topics / Groups Quotes

Groups Quotes

Browse 5322 quotes about Groups.

Groups Quotes

“Small groups or communities may be far more oppressive to the individual than larger ones. Men are in many ways freer in large cities than in small villages.”

Men Way May Individual Community Freedom Cities Groups Oppression Village Small Groups Large Cities Small Villages

Author:Morris Raphael Cohen

“The ever-present impulse is to push against restriction and, in so doing, to feel intolerably hemmed in. Thus in practice, every liberation increases the sense of oppression. Nor is the paradox merely in the mind: the laws enacted to secure the rights of every person and group, by creating protective boundaries, create new barriers.”

Feels Mind Persons Law Practice Rights Groups Creating Increase Boundaries Oppression Secure Liberation Impulse Barriers Paradox Restriction Protective

Author:Jacques Barzun

“Oppression works in such a way that it holds every person responsible for the acts of any wrongdoer of the oppressed group.”

Way Persons Groups Responsible Discrimination Oppression Oppressed

Author:Rita Mae Brown

“Once any group in society stands in a relatively deprived position in relation to other groups, it is genuinely deprived.”

Poverty Groups Position Relation Discrimination Oppression Deprived

Book:Twentieth century faith: hope and survival

Source: Twentieth century faith: hope and survival

“In order to create an alternative an oppressed group must at once shatter the self-reflecting world which encircles it and, at the same time, project its own image onto history.”

World Self Order Groups Projects Oppression Alternatives Rebellion Oppressed Reflecting Speaking Up

Book:Threads Through Time: Writings on History and Autobiography

Source: Threads Through Time: Writings on History and Autobiography

“For it is precisely because certain groups have no representation in a number of recognized political structures that their position tends to be so stable, their oppression so continuous.”

Political Certain Politics Numbers Groups Position Structure Discrimination Oppression Stable Representation

Book:Sexual Politics

Source: Sexual Politics

“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?”

“There are some groups that for years and years have not gotten the rights that the majority of human beings have, and I think that it's important to continue to draw these parallels so that when we think about our future we can change some of the lives of people who love differently than we do, look different than we do, who come from a different class. It's all about bringing awareness to how important it is to be accepting of people...and there will be oppression if one group thinks they're more important or superior.”

People Ifs Thinking Years Humans Looks Important Different Human Beings Accepting Class Rights Groups Awareness Draws Majority Superiors Oppression Our Future Parallels

Author:Janelle Monae

“From my membership in all of these groups I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sizes and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression.”

Children Goal Differences Groups Share Color Shapes Our Children Size Sexuality Oppression Liberation Intolerance I Have Learned Hierarchy Membership

Author:Audre Lorde

“By identifying with the powerful, the disempowered achieve a measure of safety, at least for a moment. By doing the bidding of those in power, they become a necessary part of the system, useful so long as they serve to contain the stirrings and strivings of the oppressed. By making the rules and values of their oppressor their own, they separate themselves from the rest of their group and, temporarily at least, assuage the pain of their stigmatized status.”

Long Moments Pain Values Powerful Groups Achieve Safety Strive Oppression Oppressed Oppressors Stirring Identifying Bidding

Book:Erotic Wars: What Happened to the Sexual Revolution?

Source: Erotic Wars: What Happened to the Sexual Revolution?

“Horizontal hostility may be expressed in sibling rivalry or in competitive dueling which wrecks not only office tranquility or suburban domesticity but also some radical political groups and, it must be sadly said, some women's liberation groups. ... [it is] misdirected anger that rightly should be focused on the external causes of oppression.”

“There were many groups working for women's rights, but none of them dealt with the root cause of women's oppression-religion.”

Causes Rights Groups Roots Oppression Womens Rights Root Cause

Author:Anne Nicol Gaylor

“[U]nless oppressed groups stick together, and on alliances of self interest rather than do-goodism; nothing can be accomplished in the long run to dismantle the apparatus of oppression.”

Long Self Running Together Interest Groups Sticks Oppression Accomplished Long Runs Oppressed Self Interest Alliances

Author:Shulamith Firestone

“If I rule out violent anarchism, there remains pacifist, anti-nationalist, anti-capitalist, moral, and anti-democratic anarchism (i.e., that which is hostile to the falsified democracy of bourgeois states). There remains the anarchism which acts by means of persuasion, by the creation of small groups and networks, denouncing falsehood and oppression, aiming at a true overturning of authorities of all kinds as people at the bottom speak and organize themselves.”