Quotes and Sayings about Oppression
"No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority."
- Joseph Addison
(Related: Legal, Authority, Oppression)
"What we call soul has been around a long time. It comes out of a particular culture that is African in origin, but influenced by 250 years of slavery, as well as other forms of racial oppression."
- Roy Ayers
(Related: Time, Soul, African, Culture, Oppression, Slavery, Years)
"The oppression of any people for opinion's sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important."
- Hosea Ballou
(Related: People, Effect, Opinion, Opinions, Oppression)
"A habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression."
- Joel Barlow
(Related: Men, Power, Cause, Oppression)
"All oppression creates a state of war."
- Simone de Beauvoir
(Related: War, Oppression, State)
"Our foreign policy has made a wreck of this planet. I'm always in Africa... And when I go to these places I see American policy written on the walls of oppression everywhere."
- Harry Belafonte
(Related: Policy, American, Foreign policy, Oppression)
"Fascism is fascism. Terrorism is terrorism. Oppression is oppression."
- Harry Belafonte
(Related: Fascism, Oppression, Terrorism)
"I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation."
- Theodore Bikel
(Related: Hope, Hate, Oppression, Respect, Voice, World)
"Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
(Related: Oppression)
"Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears."
- Louis D. Brandeis
(Related: Men, Women, Fear, Free speech, Injury, Oppression, Witches)
"Black people must address itself to the causes of poverty. That's oppression in this country."
- H. Rap Brown
(Related: People, Causes, Country, Oppression, Poverty)
"God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed."
- Luis Bunuel
(Related: God, Country, Oppression)
"In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority."
- Edmund Burke
(Related: Democracy, Majority, Minority)
"There is no doubt that Iraqis, like Australians and Americans, love and desire freedom. However, if freedom doesn't mean the right to complete self-determination, unfettered by interests other than one's own, then that freedom is less than worthless - it's oppression."
- Amir Butler
(Related: Love, Americans, Desire, Doubt, Freedom, Oppression, Right, Self)
"At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes."
- Jimmy Carter
(Related: Work, Rights, Heroes, Human rights, Oppression, Support, Victims)
"The reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age."
- John Jay Chapman
(Related: Age, Lie, Progress, Fact, Man, Reason, World)
"We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression."
- Confucius
(Related: Oppression, Sorrow)
"When we fled from the oppressions of kings and parliaments in Europe, to found this great Republic in America, we brought with us the laws and the liberties, which formed a part of our heritage as Britons."
- Caleb Cushing
(Related: America, Europe, Kings, Laws)
"People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles."
- Emily Dickinson
(Related: People, Oppression)
"Under adversity, under oppression, the words begin to fail, the easy words begin to fail. In order to convey things accurately, the human being is almost forced to find the most precise words possible, which is a precondition for literature."
- Rita Dove
(Related: Adversity, Being, Literature, Oppression, Order, Words)
"We must not enable anyone to impose his personal view regarding religion on others by force, oppression, or pressure."
- Shirin Ebadi
(Related: Religion, Force, Oppression, Pressure)
"He who allows oppression shares the crime."
- Desiderius Erasmus
(Related: Crime, Oppression)
"As there is oppression of the majority such oppression will be fought with increasing hatred."
- Bram Fischer
(Related: Hatred, Majority, Oppression, Will)
"I believe certain members of the U.S. Congress have aided in the oppression and diversion of critical information that could have revealed a fullness of truth long ago."
- Bo Gritz
(Related: Truth, Congress, Information, Oppression)
"People have got to get together and work together. I'm tired of the kind of oppression that white people have inflicted on us and are still trying to inflict."
- Fannie Lou Hamer
(Related: Work, People, Oppression, Trying)
"You cannot raise the standard against oppression, or leap into the breach to relieve injustice, and still keep an open mind to every disconcerting fact, or an open ear to the cold voice of doubt."
- Learned Hand
(Related: Doubt, Fact, Injustice, Mind, Open, Oppression, Voice)
"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."
- Robert A. Heinlein
(Related: Government, Church, End, Forbidden, May, Motives, Oppression, Result, Tyranny)
"He would see civilization in danger of perishing under the oppression of a gigantic paradox: he would see multitudes of people starving in the midst of plenty, and nations preparing for war although pledged to peace."
- Arthur Henderson
(Related: Peace, War, People, Civilization, Danger, Nations, Oppression)
"What had begun as a movement to free all black people from racist oppression became a movement with its primary goal the establishment of black male patriarchy."
- bell hooks
(Related: People, Goal, Oppression)
"Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may."
- Sam Houston
(Related: May, Oppression)
"Idleness is the heaviest of all oppressions."
- Victor Hugo
(Related: Idleness)
"The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: Error, Humanity, Oppression, Reason, World)
"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: Rights, Law, Majority, Mind, Minority, Oppression, Will)
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: People, Body, Dawn, Day, Evil, Mind, Spirits, Tyranny, Will)
"Oppression is more easily endured than insult."
- Junius
(Related: Insult, Oppression)
"When a system of oppression has become institutionalized it is unnecessary for individuals to be oppressive."
- Florynce R. Kennedy
(Related: Oppression)
"Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others."
- John F. Kennedy
(Related: Beliefs, Commitment, Oppression, Persecution, Tolerance)
"The occupation and robbery of a nation occurs under the illusion of freeing its citizens from brutal oppression."
- Ramman Kenoun
(Related: Illusion, Nation, Occupation, Oppression)
"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Related: People, Cruelty, Oppression, Silence, Tragedy)
"America is just the country that how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society."
- Peter Kropotkin
(Related: Society, America, Country, Freedom, Oppression, Protection, Tyranny, World)
"Still, corruption and oppression are far too common threats to the democratic society."
- Anna Lindh
(Related: Society, Corruption, Oppression)
"We shall all respect the principles of each other and do nothing that would be regarded as an act of oppression to any portion of the people."
- Alexander Mackenzie
(Related: People, Act, Nothing, Oppression, Principles, Respect)
"To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression."
- James Madison
(Related: Error, Humanity, Oppression, Reason, World)
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
- James Madison
(Related: Enemy, Fighting, Land, Oppression, Tyranny, Will)
"Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression."
- Malcolm X
(Related: Power, Defense, Freedom, Oppression, Tyranny)
"Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another."
- Nelson Mandela
(Related: Experience, Land, Oppression, Will)
"America and its allies are engaged in a war against a terrorist movement that spans all corners of the globe. It is sparked by radical ideologues that breed hatred, oppression, and violence against all of their declared enemies."
- Kenny Marchant
(Related: War, America, Enemies, Hatred, Oppression, Radical, Violence)
"Together we have travelled a long road to be where we are today. This has been a road of struggle against colonial and apartheid oppression."
- Thabo Mbeki
(Related: Oppression, Road, Struggle, Today)
"The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Government, Fanatics, Oppression)
"We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of anyone, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours."
- John Stuart Mill
(Related: Act, Exercise, Individuality, Opinion, Oppression, Right)
"A sexual revolution begins with the emancipation of women, who are the chief victims of patriarchy, and also with the ending of homosexual oppression."
- Kate Millett
(Related: Women, Ending, Revolution, Oppression, Victims)
"Oppression does not make for hearts as big as all outdoors. Oppression makes us big and small. Expressive and silenced. Deep and dead."
- Cherrie Moraga
(Related: Deep, Oppression)
"Oppression is something that one group of people commits against another group specifically because of a threatening characteristic shared by the latter group."
- Robin Morgan
(Related: People, Oppression)
"Many countries persecute their own citizens and intern them in prisons or concentration camps. Oppression is becoming more and more a part of the systems."
- Alva Myrdal
(Related: Countries, Oppression)
"My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music."
- Vladimir Nabokov
(Related: Music, Crime, Cruelty, Oppression, Stupidity)
"Our invisibility is the essence of our oppression. And until we eliminate that invisibility, people are going to be able to perpetuate the lies and myths about gay people."
- Jean O'Leary
(Related: People, Gay, Lies, Myths, Oppression)
"It must not be forgotten in fairness to the National Government that apartheid is not just a policy of oppression but an attempt - in my opinion an attempt doomed to failure - to find an alternative to a policy of racial integration which is fair to both white and black."
- Harry Oppenheimer
(Related: Government, Policy, Failure, Opinion, Oppression)
"The people of Nicaragua were suffering oppression. This made us develop an awareness which eventually led us to commit ourselves to the struggle against the domination of the capitalists of our country in collusion with the U.S. government, i.e. imperialism."
- Daniel Ortega
(Related: Government, People, Awareness, Country, Oppression, Struggle, Suffering)
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
- Thomas Paine
(Related: Duty, Enemy, Liberty, Oppression, Will)
"Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world."
- William Penn
(Related: Mind, Oppression, Reading, Reason, World)
"Instead, in the absence of respect for human rights, science and its offspring technology have been used in this century as brutal instruments for oppression."
- John Charles Polanyi
(Related: Science, Technology, Absence, Rights, Human rights, Oppression, Respect)
"Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression."
- James K. Polk
(Related: Constitution, Oppression, Right)
"An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution."
- George Haven Putnam
(Related: People, Execution, Heaven, Oppression)
"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)."
- Ayn Rand
(Related: Earth, Rights, Majority, Minority, Oppression, Public, Vote)
"Half a world away nations that once lived under oppression and tyranny are now budding democracies due in large part to America 's leadership and the sacrifices of our military."
- Bob Riley
(Related: Leadership, America, Military, Nations, Now, Oppression, Tyranny, World)
"It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home."
- Carl T. Rowan
(Related: Home, Discrimination, Injustice, Oppression, World)
"Coming out, all the way out, is offered more and more as the political solution to our oppression."
- Jane Rule
(Related: Oppression, Solution)
"False riches, consisting of money, houses and lands, acquired by selfish means at cost to others and thereafter used selfishly, are almost always used for the oppression of other persons."
- Joseph Franklin Rutherford
(Related: Money, Houses, Oppression)
"The situation in the region is flammable and may explode at any moment, because of the crucial events and because of the absence of justice in executing the international legitimacy resolutions, regarding the Israeli Arab cause and the oppression on Palestinians by Israelis."
- Ali A. Saleh
(Related: Absence, Cause, Events, Justice, May, Oppression)
"War, famine, poverty and oppression of the workers will continue while woman makes life cheap. They will cease only when she limits her reproductivity and human life is no longer a thing to be wasted."
- Margaret Sanger
(Related: Life, War, Famine, Limits, Oppression, Poverty, Will, Woman, Workers)
"Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it."
- Anna Sewell
(Related: Business, Cruelty, Now, Oppression)
"If you see oppression of the poor, and justice and righteousness trampled in a country, do not be astounded."
- King Solomon
(Related: Country, Justice, Oppression, Poor, Righteousness)
"If the jury have no right to judge of the justice of a law of the government, they plainly can do nothing to protect the people against the oppressions of the government; for there are no oppressions which the government may not authorize by law."
- Lysander Spooner
(Related: Government, People, Jury, Justice, Law, May, Nothing, Right)
"A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man."
- Tacitus
(Related: Nature, Desire, Man, Oppression)
"Racial discrimination, South Africa's economic power, its oppression and exploitation of all the black peoples, are part and parcel of the same thing."
- Oliver Tambo
(Related: Power, Discrimination, Exploitation, Oppression)
"Because some people have sex with people of the same sex, an entire culture has been created, broadly speaking, out of oppression. Which in a rational world would not be an issue."
- Neil Tennant
(Related: Sex, People, Culture, Oppression, World)
"In a world without the law of God, you have chaos, oppression, tyranny, and everyone doing what is right in their own eyes."
- Randall Terry
(Related: God, Chaos, Eyes, Law, Oppression, Right, Tyranny, World)
"Refrain at all times from such Foods as cannot be procured without violence and oppression."
- Thomas Tryon
(Related: Oppression, Violence)
"Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride."
- David Foster Wallace
(Related: Oppression, Poverty, Pride, Rap)
"All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."
- Noah Webster
(Related: Men, War, Bible, Ambition, Crime, Injustice, Oppression, Slavery, Vice)
"Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission."
- Simone Weil
(Related: Oppression)
"Without Liberty, Law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without Law, Liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness."
- James Q. Wilson
(Related: Nature, Law, Liberty, Name, Oppression)
"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."
- Chen Ning Yang
(Related: Anger, People, Corruption, Expression, Frustration, Oppression)
"Without the communist oppression, I am absolutely sure I would now be a local stupid professor of philosophy in Ljubljana."
- Slavoj Zizek
(Related: Now, Oppression, Philosophy)