Quotes About Oppression

Es gehört zur Tragik aller Despoten, daß sie den unabhängigen Menschen selbst dann noch fürchten, wenn sie ihn politisch machtlos und mundtot gemacht haben. Es genügt ihnen nicht, daß er schweigt und schweigen muß. Schon daß er nicht ja sagt, nicht dient und nicht buckelt, daß er sich nicht geschäftig in die Schar ihrer Schmeichler und Diener einreiht, macht sein Vorhandensein, sein Nochvorhandensein für sie zum Ärgernis.

Hitler, who despised spies (even his own), had directed that secret agents be given a special distinction at the guillotine. They were to be turned face-upwards and forced to watch the blade descend toward their neck.

Ninety percent of the population were serfs who could be beaten, killed, transported away from their family, or sold for a gambling debt or as collateral for a loan (a healthy male at the time would fetch between 200 and 500 rubles in the Moscow market; a good-looking young female, several times that).

factory had at its disposal 30,000 Jews, political prisoners

I do not believe, then, that marriage was invented to oppress women any more than it was invented to protect them. In most cases, marriage probably originated as an informal way of organizing sexual companionship, child rearing, and the daily tasks of life.

The challenge throughout has been to tell what I view as the truth about racism without causing disabling despair.

I think if the people of this country can be reached with the truth, their judgment will be in favor of the many, as against the privileged few

Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.

You will not drown the truth in seas of blood

They said, "You are a savage and dangerous woman." I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous.

It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.

Even little children repeat that oftentimes people are hanged for having told the truth.

I expose slavery in this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death.

In a free society we're supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.

When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete.

the truth is that it's far easier to make a bomb than to educate four hundred million people.

I don't think the white establishment will ever respect or appreciate a black man who speaks the truth.

Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being oppressed: Those who should be ashamed are they who oppress others.

To me the truth comes first and then the literature. We in China are dealing with a dictatorial system and we writers have to take a stance on it.

The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

There is no truth sure enough to justify persecution.

Some forms of truth are really forms of social power and oppression.

Power lies in reason, resolution, and truth. No matter how long the tyrant endures, he will be the loser at the end.

Can't trust a fascist--truth is always your first sacrifice to the welfare of the state