quotations about oppression
Do remember, though, that sometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like.
VERONICA ROTH
Insurgent
The sternness of justice is but one step removed from the severity of oppression.
ARCHIBALD ALISON
History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons
Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.
SOLOMON
Proverbs 3:31
As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS
The Douglas Letters: Selections from the Private Papers of Justice William O. Douglas
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
KARL MARX
The Communist Manifesto
If thou stand guilty of oppression, or wrongfully possessed of another's right, see thou make restitution before thou givest an alms; if otherwise, what art thou but a thief?
FRANCIS QUARLES
attributed, Day's Collacon
To simply think about the people, as the dominators do, without any self-giving in that thought, to fail to think with the people, is a sure way to cease being revolutionary leaders.
PAULO FREIRE
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man.
TACITUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.
ASSATA SHAKUR
Assata: An Autobiography
Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression.
MALCOLM X
Malcolm X Speaks
The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.
HOWARD ZINN
A People's History of the United States
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!
CHINUA ACHEBE
The Education of a British-Protected Child
The poor were wise, who, by the rich oppressed,
Withdrew, and sought a secret place of rest.
JUVENAL
Satires
There is no happiness for him who oppresses and persecutes; no, there can be no repose for him; for the sighs of the unfortunate cry for vengeance to heaven.
PESTALOZZI
attributed, Day's Collacon
The oppressed always learned from and copied the oppressor. When the tables were turned, the stage was set for another round of revenge and violence -- roles reversed. And reversed and reversed ad nauseam.
FRANK HERBERT
Chapterhouse: Dune
It must be remembered that the oppressed and the oppressor are bound together within the same society; they accept the same criteria, they share the same beliefs, they both alike depend on the same reality.
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son
Power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed.
WALLY LAMB
I Know This Much Is True
Heroes, haughty and proud, at my withering frown,
All their blood-crimsoned wreaths and their trophies lay down;
And the insolent hand of Oppression is crushed,
And the voice of the babbler and demagogue hushed.
JAMES LINEN
The Poetical and Prose Writings of James Linen
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.
JAMES MADISON
letter to Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788
In the unceasing ebb and flow of justice and oppression we must all dig channels as best we may, that at the propitious moment somewhat of the swelling tide may be conducted to the barren places of life.
JANE ADDAMS
Twenty Years at Hull House