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Oppression Quotes

Browse 1520 quotes about Oppression.

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Oppression Quotes

“I hate war, and I hate having to struggle. I honestly do because I wish I had been born into a world where it was unnecessary. This context of struggle and being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression. Otherwise I would be a sculptor, or a gardener, carpenter - You know, I would be free to be so much more… I guess part of me or a part of who I am, a part of what I do is being a warrior - a reluctant warrior, a reluctant struggler. But I do it, because I’m committed to life.”

KnowsWorldHas BeensWarWould BeHateWishBornStruggleI HateCommittedHonestlyWho I AmOppressionWarriorUnnecessaryGardenerReluctantSculptorsCarpenter
Author:Assata Shakur
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“Anarchism is the abolition of exploitation and oppression of man by man, that is, the abolition of private property and government; Anarchism is the destruction of misery, of superstitions, of hatred. Therefore, every blow given to the institutions of private property and to the government, every exaltation of the conscience of man, every disruption of the present conditions, every lie unmasked, every part of human activity taken away from the control of the authorities, every augmentation of the spirit of solidarity and initiative, is a step towards Anarchism.”

MenHumansGovernmentSpiritLyingGivenStepsTakenConditionsActivityAuthorityConscienceDestructionHatredInstitutionsPropertyMiseryBlowOppressionSuperstitionsInitiativeExploitationSolidarityAnarchismPrivate PropertyDisruptionAbolitionHuman ActivityExaltation
Book:The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader
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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.”

IfsShouldWellsMayEnoughDesireEnjoyMankindPersonalityLimitsEqualOppressionAspirationRebelTyrantsIntoleranceUnlimitedAnarchist
Book:Life and Ideas: The Anarchist Writings of Errico Malatesta
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“Female heterosexuality is not a biological drive or an individual women's erotic attraction or attachment to another human animal which happens to be male. Female heterosexuality is a set of social institutions and practices... Those definitions... are about the oppression and exploitation of women by men.”

MenHumansHappensIndividualSocialAnimalPracticeFemaleInstitutionsMalesDefinitionsFeministAttractionOppressionAttachmentExploitationEroticHuman AnimalHeterosexualitySocial InstitutionsMale FemaleHeterosexuality Is
Author:Marilyn Frye
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“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.”

MenFirstsSexClassDevelopmentMen And WomenFemaleMalesFeministOppressionOppositionFirst ClassAntagonism
Book:The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History's Most Important Political Document
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“Anger and humor are like the left and right arm. They complement each other. Anger empowers the poor to declare their uncompromising opposition to oppression, and humor prevents them from being consumed by their fury.”

LeftPoorArmsEmpowermentOppressionAfrican AmericanEmpoweringOppositionConsumedFuryComplementUncompromisingLeft And Right
Book:Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare
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“While we sometimes feel and have felt in days that are past and gone, to complain because we meet with oppression, persecution, and affliction, yet I wish to say to my brethren and sisters that these things are the heritage of the Saints of God. … I have never read of the people of God in any dispensation passing through life, as the sectarian world would say, on flowery beds of ease, without opposition of any kind.”

PeopleWorldFeelsKindSometimesPastWishFeltGoneBedSaintComplainingPassingPassingsOppressionEaseOppositionHeritageAfflictionPersecutionBrethrenPassing Through
Author:Wilford Woodruff
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“This pedagogy makes oppression and its causes objects of reflection by the oppressed, and from that reflection will come their necessary engagement in the struggle for their liberation. And in the struggle this pedagogy will be made and remade”

MadeCausesStruggleObjectsReflectionFeministOppressionLiberationEngagementOppressedPedagogyPedagogy Of The Oppressed
Book:Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition
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“He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.”

MenChristianHateCitizensAmbitionVictimRewardsSoldierVicesNeighborTyrannyCrueltyOppressionSelfishnessHypocrisyOfficersFoeReproachTreacheryMurmuringGuile
Book:Senator Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia: His Life, Speeches and Writings
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“Ask yourself why totalitarian dictatorships find it necessary to pour money and effort into propaganda for their own helpless, chained, gagged slaves, who have no means of protest or defense. The answer is that even the humblest peasant or the lowest savage would rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible noble purpose, but to plain, naked human evil.”

HumansMeanPurposeEvilAsksRealizingAnswersEffortBlindSlaveDefenseNobleTyrannyNakedOppressionPropagandaNovelistsProtestRebellionTyrantsDictatorshipSavagesHelplessLowestTotalitarianismPeasantsFamous WomenChained
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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“The Constitution and the Bill of Rights we designed to get the government off the backs of the people -- all the people. Those great documents guarantee to us all the rights to personal and spiritual self-fulfillment. But that guarantee is not self-executing. As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we all must be most aware of the change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”

PeopleDoeSelfGovernmentSpiritualDarknessRightsAirConstitutionVictimRemainsBillsOppressionInstanceFulfillmentGuaranteesTwilightDocumentsBill Of RightsExecutingNightfallSelf Fulfillment
Author:William O. Douglas
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“Socialism's results have ranged between the merely shabby and the truly catastrophic - poverty, strife, oppression and, on the killing fields of communism, the deaths this century of perhaps 100 million people. Against that doctrine was set a contrary, conservative belief in a law-governed liberty. It was this view which triumphed with the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. Since then, the Left has sought rehabilitation by distancing itself from its past.”

PeoplePastLawBeliefLeftResultsViewsLibertyPovertyMillionsCenturyFieldsWallKillingConservativeContrarySocialismDoctrineOppressionCommunismStrifeBerlinRehabilitationCrumblingShabbyBerlin Wall
Author:Margaret Thatcher
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“Contrary to popular belief, conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires… But what history really shows is that today`s empire is tomorrow`s ashes, that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to acquiesce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit.”

TryingBelieveHumansShowsTodayLastsFormSpiritFightingBeliefForceForeverTomorrowExerciseContraryInsaneOppressionEmpiresSanityConventionalAshesHuman SpiritConventional WisdomContrary To Popular BeliefNothing Lasts Forever
Author:Mumia Abu-Jamal
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“When people use the word hell, what do they mean? They mean a place, an event, a situation absent of how God desires things to be. Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair, death, slaughter--they are all hell on earth. Jesus' desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth. What's disturbing is when people talk more about hell after this life than they do about Hell here and now. As a Christian, I want to do what I can to resist hell coming to earth.”

PeopleWayWantMeanI CanUseEarthChristianDesireJesusHeavenSituationHellEventsLonelinessDespairDebtOppressionThis LifeFollowersDisturbingAbsentHere And NowFamineSlaughterHell On Earth
Author:Rob Bell
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“The great masses of men, though theoretically free, are seen to submit supinely to oppression and exploitation of a hundred abhorrent sorts. Have they no means of resistance? Obviously they have. The worst tyrant, even under democratic plutocracy, has but one throat to slit. The moment the majority decided to overthrow him he would be overthrown. But the majority lacks the resolution; it cannot imagine taking the risks.”

MenMeanMomentsWould BeImagineRiskWorstMassHundredDecidedMajorityDemocraticResistanceOppressionResolutionThroatTyrantsSubmitExploitationSlitsAbhorrentPlutocracy
Book:Notes On Democracy
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“Surely nowhere in the world do oppression and persecution based solely on the color of the skin appear more hateful and hideous than in the capital of the United States, because the chasm between the principles upon which this Government was founded, in which it still professes to believe, and those which are daily practiced under the protection of the flag, yawn so wide and deep.”

WorldBelieveStillsStatesGovernmentUnitedPrinciplesUnited StatesColorSkinsWideProtectionOppressionFlagsPersecutionHatefulHideousChasms
Author:Mary Church Terrell
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“Oppressed groups are frequently placed in the situation of being listened to only if we frame our ideas in the language that is familiar to and comfortable for a dominant group. This requirement often changes the meaning of our ideas and works to elevate the ideas of dominant groups.”

IfsIdeasLanguageSocialChangeSituationGroupsSocietyComfortableFamiliarOppressionIdeologyDominantOppressedRequirementsDominationElevationElevating
Book:Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
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“Let no man dare, when I am dead. to charge me with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence, or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen.”

MenBelieveCountryCausesMemoriesLibertyRepublicanIndependenceMiseryDareOppressionEngagedCountrymenDishonorMinions
Book:Irish Eloquence: The Speeches of the Celebrated Irish Orators: Phillips, Curran and Grattan, to which is Added the Powerful Appeal of Robert Emmett, at the Close of His Trial for High Treason
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“Where constraint breaks people, and mediation makes fools of them, the seduction of power is what makes them love their oppression. Because of it, people give up their real riches for a cause that mutilates them; for an appearance that reifies them; for roles that wrest them from authentic life; for a time whose passage defines and confines them.”

PeopleGivingRealCausesRolesBreakFoolGiving UpAppearanceRichesOppressionPassagesSeductionConstraintsMediationAuthentic Life
Book:Situationism: A Compendium
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“In the final analysis, the incident is seen as originating from an emotional expression of the frustration and anger of the proud people of China who had been subject to ever increasing oppression from without and decadent corruption from within.”

PeopleSubjectsEmotionalExpressionProudAngerFinalsCorruptionChinaOppressionAnalysisFrustrationIncidentsEmotional Expression
Book:Selected Papers, 1945-1980, with Commentary
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“In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit , but as a limiting situation which they can transform.”

WorldRealityAbleOrderSituationStruggleOppressionLiberationPerceiveOppressedExitPedagogy Of The OppressedNo Exit
Book:Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition
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“Black Consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time. Its essence is the realisation by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression - the blackness of their skin - and to operate as a group to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude.”

MenWorldWayNeedsMindLongTogetherCausesBlackConsciousnessAttitudeGroupsBrotherLong TimeSkinsEssenceOppressionPerpetualBlacknessServitudeRealisationShacklesEmanateBlack Consciousness
Author:Steven Biko
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“Communists have always viewed the national question through the prism of the class struggle, believing that its solution has to be subordinated to the interests of the Revolution, to the interests of socialism. That is why Communists and all fighters for socialism believe that the main aspect of the national question is unification of the working people, regardless of their national origin, in the common struggle against every type of oppression, and for a new social system which rules out exploitation of the working people.”

PeopleBelieveSocialInterestCommonClassStruggleRevolutionTypeSolutionsAspectSocialismOppressionFighterCommunistExploitationClass StruggleSocial SystemsPrismsUnificationCommon Struggle
Author:Leonid Brezhnev
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“Christianity was created by some decadent and degenerated Romans as a tool of oppression, in the late Roman era, and it should be treated accordingly. It is like handcuffs to the mind and spirit and is nothing but destructive to mankind. In fact I don't really see Christianity as a religion. It is more like a spiritual plague, a mass psychosis, and it should first and foremost be treated as a problem to be solved by the medical science. Christianity is a diagnosis. It's like Islam and the other Asian religions, a HIV/AIDS of the spirit and mind.”

ShouldMindFirstsFactsProblemSpiritualSpiritChristianityMankindLateMassToolsIslamAidsMedicalTreatedOppressionErasDestructivePlagueAsianHivDiagnosisPsychosisHiv AidsMedical ScienceHandcuffs
Author:Varg Vikernes
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