Quotes about Oppression

Composer, Economist, Philosopher

Violent resistance against the power of the state is the last resort of the minority in its effort to break loose from the oppression of the majority. ... The citizen must not be so narrowly circumscribed in his activities that, if he thinks differently from those in power, his only choice is either to perish or to destroy the machinery of state.

Activity - Choice - Citizenry - Democracy - Economy - Effort - Machine - Majority - Oppression - Resistance - State - Thinking - Violence

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Martin Luther

Theologian, Professor, Monk

Heavy thoughts bring on physical maladies; when the soul is oppressed so is the body.

Oppression - Worrying

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Martin Luther

Theologian, Professor, Monk

Our most merciful Father, seeing us to be oppressed and overwhelmed with the curse of the law . . . sent his only Son into the world and laid upon him all the sins of all men, saying, 'You be Peter that denier, Paul that persecutor, blasphemer and cruel oppressor, David that adulterer, that sinner who ate the apple in Paradise, that thief who hung upon the cross, and briefly, you be the person who has committed the sins of all men. See therefore that you pay and satisfy for them.'

Man - Oppression - Payment - Sin

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Bertrand Russell

Philosopher, Writer, Activist

I have been merely oppressed by the weariness and tedium and vanity of things lately: nothing stirs me, nothing seems worth doing or worth having done: the only thing that I strongly feel worth while would be to murder as many people as possible so as to diminish the amount of consciousness in the world. These times have to be lived through: there is nothing to be done with them.

Feelings - Oppression

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Augustine of Hippo

Theologian, Philosopher

Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved!

Guarding - Laziness - Liberty - Oppression - Teaching

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Alexis de Tocqueville

Diplomat, Political Scientist, Historian

It is above all in the present democratic age that the true friends of liberty and human grandeur must remain constantly vigilant and ready to prevent the social power from lightly sacrificing the particular rights of a few individuals to the general execution of its designs. In such times there is no citizen so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed, and there are no individual rights so unimportant that they can be sacrificed to arbitrariness with impunity.

Age - Citizenry - Danger - Democracy - Design - Execution - Human - Individual - Liberty - Obscurity - Oppression - Right - Sacrifice - Vigilance

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leader, Civil rights activist

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Freedom - Giving - Independence - Jail - Liberty - Oppression - Politics

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Malcolm X

Human Rights Activist

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.

Oppression

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Benjamin Franklin

Polymath, Founding Father of the United States

History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. ... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened.

Favor - Illness - Mistake - Obligations - Oppression - Politics - State - Violence - Whole

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Mahatma Gandhi

Lawyer, Politician, Civil Rights Activist

Let us learn from the English rulers the simple fact that the oppressors are blind to the enormity of their own misdeeds.

Blindness - Linguistics - Oppression

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Nelson Mandela

Revolutionary, Former President of South Africa

It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed.

Liberty - Loneliness - Oppression - Wellness

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Ludwig von Mises

Composer, Economist, Philosopher

It is not conclusive proof of a doctrine's correctness that its adversaries use the police, the hangman, and violent mobs to fight it. But it is a proof of the fact that those taking recourse to violent oppression are in their subconscious convinced of the untenability of their own doctrines.

Facts - Fighting - Oppression - Police - Proof - Violence

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Horace

Poet, Senator, Soldier

The body oppressed by excesses bears down the mind, and depresses to the earth any portion of the divine spirit we had been endowed with.

Depression - Earth - Mindset - Oppression - Spirits

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William Butler Yeats

Clergyman, Poet, Poet

Cats are oppressed, dogs terrify them, landladies starve them, boys stone them, everybody speaks of them with contempt. If they were human beings we could talk of their oppressors with a studied violence, add our strength to theirs, even organize the oppressed and like good politicians sell our charity for power.

Boy - Charity - Contempt - Human - Oppression - Organizing - Speaking - Violence

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H. L. Mencken

Journalist, Cultural Critic

Women have a hard time of it in this world. They are oppressed by man-made laws, man-made social customs, masculine egoism, the delusion of masculine superiority. Their one comfort is the assurance that, even though it may be impossible to prevail against man, it is always possible to enslave and torture a man.

Making - Man - Masculinity - Oppression - Woman

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Joseph Campbell

Public Servant, Author, Writer

Typically, the hero of the fairy tale achieves a domestic, microcosmic triumph, and the hero of myth a world-historica l, macrocosmic triumph. Whereas the former-the youngest or despised child who becomes the master of extraordinary powers-prevails over his personal oppressors, the latter brings back from his adventure the means for the regeneration of his society as a whole.

Achievement - Adventure - Children - Extraordinary - Heroism - Mastering - Meaning - Mythology - Oppression - Triumph - Whole - World

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Nelson Mandela

Revolutionary, Former President of South Africa

I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

Oppression - Taking

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John Locke

Philosopher, Physician

If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors.

Honesty - Innocence - Kindness - Man - Oppression - Robbery - Violence

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Historian, Novelist

Let us drive away those cruel, greedy oppressors, governments, and the new ones, having just laid aside grenades and rifles, will be just and understanding. Far from it.

Greed - Oppression

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Ronald Reagan

Former President of the United States

America has not been a story or a byword. That small community of Pilgrims prospered and, driven by the dreams and, yes, by the ideas of the Founding Fathers, went on to become a beacon to all the oppressed and poor of the world.

Drive - Oppression - Story

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