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Oppression Quotes

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Oppression Quotes

“I apologize to everyone who was offended by my insensitive tweet about the situation in Egypt. I've dedicated my life to raising awareness about serious social issues, and in hindsight my attempt at humor regarding a nation liberating themselves against oppression was poorly timed and absolutely inappropriate.”

NationsSocialSituationIssuesAwarenessSeriousOppressionDedicatedApologizingEgyptOffendedSocial IssuesLiberatingTweetInappropriateHindsightInsensitiveI ApologizeRaising Awareness
Author:Kenneth Cole
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“As it was 189 years ago, so today the cause of America is a revolutionary cause. And I am proud this morning to salute you as fellow revolutionaries. Neither you nor I are willing to accept the tyranny of poverty, nor the dictatorship of ignorance, nor the despotism of ill health, nor the oppression of bias and prejudice and bigotry. We want change. We want progress. We want it both abroad and at homeand we aim to get it.”

WantYearsTodayAmericaCausesAcceptingPovertyMorningProgressIgnoranceWillingProudYears AgoPrejudiceAimFellowsIllTyrannyOppressionRevolutionaryBigotryDictatorshipBiasDespotismSaluteIll HealthBias And Prejudice
Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966
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“In my profession more generally, it's not an exaggeration to say that masculinity is viewed as the root of all evil. If you were to take a literary theory course, you might think it would be about literature, but it's really not. It's about all the various forms of oppression on earth and how we can see them playing out in literary works. And behind all these forms of oppression is a guy.”

IfsThinkingMightWould BeEarthFormGuyCoursesEvilLiteratureBehindsTheoryRootsVariousProfessionOppressionMasculinityExaggerationLiterary WorksLiterary Theory
Author:Jonathan Gottschall
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“The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism.”

MenWorldPhilosophyFormPoliticalEconomyCenturyReactionsSocialismDoctrineOppressionSuperstitionsOutlookDefenceComprehensiveHarmoniousBourgeoisNineteenth CenturyMarxistSuccessorsOmnipotentPolitical EconomyGerman Philosophy
Book:Izbrannye Proizvedenii͡a V Trekh Tomakh
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“Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn't the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of 'free contract' between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.”

IfsHumansMadeIdeasMomentsWould BeFormViewsOpinionSubjectsPossibilityJokesCapitalismConsequenceSickErrorsTyrannyAbsurdOppressionContractsAcademicExploringHuman HistoryStarvingCounterpartsColossalSeminars
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare them for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood.”

IfsMenWould BeParentRaceWatchesPowerFateChildhoodMinutesObjectsAuthorityAbsolutesContraryOppressionSecurePerpetualImmenseManhoodGratification
Book:Democracy in America
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“No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man's inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society.”

MenMeanHas BeensUsedSpiritPurposeValuesIgnoranceRevolutionThousandSucceedBuiltRelationTransformationSlaveryComplexesInjusticeViolentTendenciesFactorsOppressionLiberationProtestDominantIdenticalBrutalityDestroyersInhumanityNegationComplex SystemsInhumanity To Man
Author:Emma Goldman
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“There are many well-meaning people today who work at placing an economic floor beneath all of us so that no one shall exist below a certain level or standard of living, and certainly we don't quarrel with this. But look more closely and you may find that all too often these well-meaning people are building a ceiling above which no one shall be permitted to climb and between the two are pressing us all into conformity, into a mold of standardized mediocrity.”

PeopleWellsLooksMayTwoTodayCertainLevelsEconomicBuildingStandardsEconomicsOppressionClimbsConformityMediocrityQuarrelsMoldCeilingsStandards Of Living
Author:Ronald Reagan
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“So far as the object of taxation is to raise a revenue for discharging the debts and defraying the expenses of the community, its operation should be adapted as much as possible to suit the burden with equal hand upon all in proportion with their ability of bearing it without oppression.”

ShouldHandsCommunityAbilityObjectsEqualRaisesBurdenDebtOppressionSuitsOperationsProportionExpensesTaxationRevenueAdapted
Book:John Quincy Adams, 1767-1848; chronology, documents, bibliographical aids
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“Oppression tries to defend itself by its utility. But we have seen that it is one of the lies of the serious mind to attempt to give the word "useful" an absolute meaning; nothing is useful if it is not useful to man; nothing is useful to man if the latter is not in a position to define his own ends and values, if he is not free.”

IfsMenGivingTryingMindEndsLyingValuesPositionSeriousAbsolutesOppressionLatterUtilityMeaning Nothing
Book:The Ethics of Ambiguity
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“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.”

FeelsMindPersonsLawPracticeRightsGroupsCreatingIncreaseBoundariesOppressionSecureLiberationImpulseBarriersParadoxRestrictionProtective
Author:Jacques Barzun
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“The nature of women's oppression is unique: women are oppressed as women, regardless of class or race; some women have access to significant wealth, but that wealth does not signify power; women are to be found everywhere, but own or control no appreciable territory; women live with those who oppress them, sleep with them, have their children - we are tangled, hopelessly it seems, in the gut of the machinery and way of life which is ruinous to us.”

WayChildrenDoeSeemsFoundWealthSleepRaceClassUniqueAccessSignificantOppressionGutsTerritoryOppressedMachineryTangled
Author:Andrea Dworkin
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“Perhaps a revolution can overthrow autocratic despotism and profiteering or power-grabbing oppression, but it can never truly reform a manner of thinking; instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones they replace, will serve as a leash for the great unthinking mass.”

ThinkingRevolutionMassPrejudiceOppressionReformDespotismGrabbingLeashes
Book:Perpetual Peace and Other Essays: on Politics, History, and Morals
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“The object of a dialogical-liberterian action is not to 'dislodge' the oppressed from a mythological reality in order to 'bind' them to another reality. On the contrary, the object of dialogical action is to make it possible for the oppressed, by perceiving their adhesion, to opt to transform an unjust reality." "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.”

WorldFirstsDifferentRealityActionOrderCuttingMagicObjectsUnityMythContraryOppressionLinksOppressedUnjustCordsUmbilical Cord
Author:Paulo Freire
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“The idea that the object of constitutions is not to confirm the predominance of any interest, but to prevent it; to preserve with equal care the independence of labour and the security of property; to make the rich safe against envy, and the poor against oppression, marks the highest level attained by the statesmanship of Greece.”

IdeasCareInterestPoorLevelsRichSecurityObjectsSafeEqualHighestConstitutionMarkIndependencePropertyEnvyOppressionPreservesLabourGreeceStatesmanship
Book:The History of Freedom (and other Essays)
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“To answer oppression with appropriate resistance requires knowledge of two kinds: in the first place, self-knowledge by the victim, which means awareness that oppression exists, an awareness that the victim has fallen from a great height of glory or promise into the present depths; secondly, the victim must know who the enemy is. He must know his oppressor's real name, not an alias, a pseudonym, or a nom de plume!”

KnowsFirstsKindMeanTwoRealSelfNamesAnswersEnemyAwarenessPromiseGloryVictimDepthResistanceOppressionHeightFallenAppropriateSelf KnowledgeOppressorsAliasesGreat HeightsPseudonyms
Book:The Education of a British-Protected Child
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“I would rather quit public life at seventy, and quit it forever, than to retain public life at a sacrifice to my own self-respect. I will not vote for any law which will make fair for me and foul for another. The blacklist is the most cruel form of oppression ever devised by man for the infliction of suffering upon his weaker fellows.”

MenSelfFormLawSufferingMy OwnForeverSacrificeFairsVoteFellowsQuittingOppressionSelf RespectSeventiesFoulPublic LifeInfliction
Author:Joseph Gurney Cannon
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“The artivist (artist +activist) uses her artistic talents to fight and struggle against injustice and oppression – by any medium necessary. The artivist merges commitment to freedom and justice with the pen, the lens, the brush, the voice, the body, and the imagination. The artivist knows that to make an observation is to have an obligation.”

KnowsUseBodyArtistFightingVoiceImaginationJusticeStruggleTalentCommitmentInjusticeObligationMediumsOppressionObservationArtisticPensActivistBrushesLensesInjustice And OppressionArtistic Talent
Author:M. K. Asante
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“The hell of human suffering, evil and oppression is paved with good intentions. The men who have most injured and oppressed humanity, who have most deeply sinned against it, were according to their standards and their conscience good men; what was bad in them, what wrought moral evil and cruelty, treason to truth and progress, was not at all in their intentions, in their purpose, in their personal character, but in their opinions.”

MenHumansCharacterPurposeSufferingHumanityEvilMoralOpinionHellProgressHe ManStandardsConscienceIntentionCrueltyOppressionGood ManOppressedInjuredGood IntentionsTreasonHuman SufferingPersonal CharacterMoral Evil
Author:Robert Briffault
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“Speakers' nerves affect them in various ways. Some tremble, some become frenzied. I lose all confidence, and suffer from a leaden oppression that makes me wonder why I ever agreed to speak at all; the Tomb and the Conqueror Worm seem preferable to delivering the stupid and piffling speech I have so carefully prepared.”

WaySeemsSufferingSpeakLosesWonderStupidSpeechPreparedVariousOppressionNervesSpeakersWormsTombsConquerorDelivering
Book:Selected works on the art of writing
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“Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.”

IfsGivingStillsFormLawPoliticalPassionPoliticsViewsEconomyEffectsInspireTaughtMoralityConflictImportanceSlaveryPoint Of ViewOppressionTragicMonopolySanctionsExaggeratedPerversionRobberyPolitical EconomySupposition
Author:Frederic Bastiat
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“After Bruno's death, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Descartes seemed about to take the leadership of human thought... in promoting an evolution doctrine as regards the mechanical formation of the solar system... but his constant dread of persecution, both from Catholics and Protestants, led him steadily to veil his thoughts and even to suppress them. ...Since Roger Bacon, perhaps, no great thinker had been so completely abased and thwarted by theological oppression.”

FirstsHumansHalfCenturyEvolutionRegardCatholicConstantDoctrineOppressionThinkerDreadPersecutionVeilsPromotingFormationTheologicalProtestantsRogerSolar SystemHuman ThoughtGreat Thinkers
Author:Andrew Dickson White
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“All socialism involves slavery.... That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labors under coercion to satisfy another's desires. The relation admits of many gradations. Oppressive taxation is a form of slavery of the individual to the community as a whole. The essential question is -- How much is he compelled to labor for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labor for his own benefit?”

WholeFormDesireIndividualCommunityResponsibilityEssentialsBenefitsLaborRelationSlaverySlaveSocialismOppressionCompelledTaxationCoercionEssential Questions
Author:Herbert Spencer
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“Women themselves condition their daughters to serve the system of male primacy. If a daughter challenges it, the mother will generally defend the system rather than her daughter. These mothers, victims themselves, have unwittingly become wounded wounders. Women need to attack culture's oppression of women, for there truly is a godlike socializing power that induces women to "buy in" or collude, but we also need to confront our own part in accepting male dominance and take responsibility where appropriate.”

IfsNeedsMotherCultureWomenChallengesResponsibilityAcceptingConditionsDaughterVictimMalesOppressionAppropriateWoundedTaking ResponsibilityDominanceGodlikeSocializingPrimacyMale Dominance
Author:Sue Monk Kidd
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“According to my observations, mankind are among the most easily tamable and domesticable of all creatures in the animal world. They are readily reducible to submission, so readily conditionable (to coin a word) as to exhibit an almost incredibly enduring patience under restraint and oppression of the most flagrant character. So far are they from displaying any overweening love of freedom that they show a singular contentment with a condition of servitorship, often showing a curious canine pride in it, and again often simply unaware that they are existing in that condition.”

WorldCharacterShowsAnimalConditionsMankindPrideCreaturesEndureOppressionObservationCuriousContentmentRestraintCoinsSubmissionExhibitsCanineAnimal World
Author:Albert J. Nock
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“Violent resistance against the power of the state is the last resort of the minority in its effort to break loose from the oppression of the majority. ... The citizen must not be so narrowly circumscribed in his activities that, if he thinks differently from those in power, his only choice is either to perish or to destroy the machinery of state.”

IfsThinkingStatesLastsChoicesEffortBreakDemocracyViolenceCitizensActivityEconomicsMajorityViolentResistanceOppressionMinoritiesMachineryResorts
Book:The free and prosperous commonwealth: an exposition of the ideas of classical liberalism
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