Quotes About Oppression

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants: it is the creed of slaves. William Pitt Speech to the House of Commons, 1783

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that will sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. —Robert F Kennedy South Africa,

Sin that is confessed brings relief to life, but confession alone does not free a person from the oppression of sin. While repentance, the turning away from sin and the turning toward a godly life, will not free a person from the results and consequences of sin, it will free him from the guilt and tyranny of sin.

The breakdown of the black community, in order to maintain slavery, began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river.

When the police become criminals, slavery can take root.

For some slaves, the first step out of bondage is to learn to see their lives with new eyes. Their reality is a social world where they have their place and some assurance of a subsistence diet. Born into slavery, they cannot easily redefine their lives outside the frame of enslavement.

The only conspiracy that matters is the conspiracy of the psychopaths against the rest of us.

Real dystopias are more like the old Soviet Union rather than Mad Max: They are stiflingly bureaucratic rather than lawless.

Racism is a prejudice erected into a system.

The apocalypse sounds like this-- black men breaking in to steal back the thing once stole from them.

A finger is a gun-- a wallet is a gun, skin a shiny pistol, a demon, a barrel already ready-- hands up don't shoot--

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.

I realized that I belonged neither to the Hindus nor to the Mussalmans. How could I explain to my wife that while the Brahmins lived on offerings made to their gods, the Rajputs and the Jats had their lands, Aheers and the Gujars their cattle, the Banias their shops, all that the poor Kayasthas had were their brains and their reed pens! And the only people who could pay for their brains and their pens were the rulers who were Muslims!

His (Juggut Singh's) equation with authority was simple: he was on the other side. Personalities did not come into it. Subinspectors & policemen were people in khaki who frequently arrested him, always abused him, and sometimes beat him. Since they abused him and beat him without anger or hate, they were not human beings with names. They were only denominations one tried to get the better of. If one failed, it was just bad luck.

The Muslims had become masters of Hindustan. They were quite willing to let us Hindus live our lives as we wanted to provided we recognized them as our rulers. But the Hindus were full of foolish pride. 'This is our country!' they said. 'We will drive out these cow-killers and destroyers of our temples.' They were especially contemptuous towards Hindus who had embraced Islam and treated them worse than untouchables.

How terrible it is to be woman...but only because of men.

Men. Such easy prey. Which is why so many men hate women...or at least fear them, which is much the same thing. They know, even if they don't know they know, that a smart good-looking woman holds all the cards. They know, even if they don't know they know, that males are the weaker sex. Why else would they repress females all over the world from the dawn of historical time?

We felt the one thing the system feared was angry women. We wanted milk for the children.

when we were walking through Angkor War, I found myself wondering about what is lost when one culture is systematically annihilated so another can thrive in the name of progress. Think about it, what might have happened if Cambodia hadn't eventually been taken over by Siam and then France - what the Cambodians could offer the world if they're given the opportunity to follow through with what they're meant to become.

by using the word 'empowered' to describe women, men are simply maintaining their own power and control.

The oppressed peoples can liberate themselves only through struggle. This is a simple and clear truth confirmed by history.

You know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." THUCYDIDES, THE HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, 5TH CENTURY B.C.

I don't want to oppress men or demand to be given rights beyond what's held by them, but neither do I want men to oppress women. As God's creations, we should be held in equal esteem.

But one person's national security tool can be another's tool of oppression, and there's no guarantee that a government that buys zero days won't misuse them to spy on political opponents and activists or pass them to another government that will.