Quotes About Oppression

Men have hitherto treated women like birds which have strayed down to them from the heights; as something more delicate, more fragile, more savage, stranger, sweeter, soulful – but as something which has to be caged up so that it shall not fly away.

There is nothing more terrible than a barbaric slave class, who have learned to regard their existence as an injustice, and now prepare to take vengeance, not only for themselves, but for all generations.

Where there have been powerful governments, societies, religions, public opinions, in short wherever there has been tyranny, there the solitary philosopher has been hated; for philosophy offers an asylum to a man into which no tyranny can force it way, the inward cave, the labyrinth of the heart.

Mult prea mult timp într-o femeie erau ascunÅŸi un sclav ÅŸi un tiran. Iat? de ce femeia nu-i în stare s? fie prieten?: ea nu cunoaÅŸte decât dragostea. In dragostea femeii se ascunde nedreptate ÅŸi orbire-mpotriva a tot ce nu iubeÅŸte ea. Åži chiar ÅŸi-n dragostea cea ÅŸtiutoare a femeii se afl?-ntotdeauna, al?turi de lumin?, surpriz?, fulger ÅŸi-ntuneric.

Woman! One-half of mankind is weak, typically sick, changeable, inconstant... she needs a religion of weakness that glorifies being weak, loving, and being humble as divine: or better, she makes the strong weak--she rules when she succeeds in overcoming the strong... Woman has always conspired with the types of decadence, the priests, against the 'powerful', the 'strong', the men.

First principle: any explanation is better than none. Because it is at bottom only a question of wanting to get rid of oppressive ideas, one is not exactly particular about what means one uses to get rid of them: the first idea which explains that the unknown is in fact the known does so much good that one 'holds it for true'. Proof by pleasure ('by potency') as criterion of truth.

Ich mag eure kalte Gerechtigkeit nicht; und aus dem Auge eurer Richter blickt mir immer der Henker und sein kaltes Eisen. (Ich don't like your cold justice; and from the eyes of your judges seems to always gaze the hangman and his cold iron.)

You have about as much chance as a starving Ukrainian kulak now that Moscow's clapped on the interdict.

Communism is the final logic of the dehumanization of man.

Communism has chosen the Cross in the sense that it has brought back to an egotistic world a sense of discipline, self-abnegation, surrender, hard work, study, and dedication to supra-individual goals. But the Cross without Christ is sacrifice without love. Hence, Communism has produced a society that is authoritarian, cruel, oppressive of human freedom, filled with concentration camps, firing squads, and brain-washings.

Totalitarians are fond of saying that Christianity is the enemy of the State—a euphemistic way of saying an enemy of themselves.

Ya lo verán, decía, se volverán a repartir todo entre los curas, los gringos y los ricos, y nada para los pobres... porque éstos estarán siempre tan jodidos que el día en que la mierda tenga algún valor los pobres nacerán sin culo.

The history of American women is about the fight for freedom, but it's less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women's role that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders.

Kahlo signed several letters as 'La Malinche' and referenced her repeatedly through her imagery, thus cementing her identification with the Chingada-Malinche. In doing so she rehabilitated the most despised and misunderstood character of Mexican history and exposed the misogynist forces that maligned her and continued to oppress her daughters during Kahlo's lifetime.

In some countries that are darlings of the West, like Egypt, everyone knows the result of national elections years in advance: The man in power always wins. In others, like Saudi Arabia, the very idea of an election is unthinkable.

Just as the Russians and the Soviets didn't manage to wipe out languages in Lithuania, neither have they managed to wipe out religion to the extent that we had feared.

If you've ever felt oppressed on any level, there's something from 'The Wire' that you can take and identify with.

Yes, as an oppressed people, American Indians have this epic burden, but first and foremost, they're human: sometimes a mess, sometimes funny or sad, at times very wise, and other times not wise at all - a lot like me.

Whatever the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to the safety resulting from political freedom. Suppression is always foolish. Freedom is always wise.

I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.

I was unlucky enough to grow up under a military dictatorship which had very Left-wing, socialist policies. It's not something I would wish on anyone.

We wish to be treated 'not as ordinary prisoners,' for we are not criminals. We admit no crime - unless, that is, the love of one's people and country is a crime.

But to the slave mother New Year's day comes laden with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns.

For centuries, divorce in the West was a male tool of control - a legislative chastity belt designed to ensure that a wife had one master, while a husband could enjoy many mistresses. It is as though, having denied women their cake for so long, the makers have no wish to see them enjoy it.