Oppress Quotes

Continuous persecution of widows and orphans is a crime. Even the Bible says there is a specific place in hell for those who oppress widows. ~ Imelda Marcos

I understood, by dint of digging into my memories, that modesty helped me to shine, humility helped me to triumph and virtue to oppress. ~ Albert Camus

Marriage is an institution fits in perfect harmony with the laws of nature; whereas systems of slavery and segregation were designed to brutally oppress people and thereby violated the laws of nature. ~ Jack Kingston

Animals do not betray; they do not exploit; they do not oppress; they do not enslave; they do not sin. They have their being, and their being is honest, and who can say this of man? ~ Taylor Caldwell

The trials my father went through were things most young black males have to go through. There was nothing he shielded from me, because it doesn't matter how you grow up, those who oppress will oppress. It's all completely relatable; everyone feels NWA. ~ O'Shea Jackson, Jr.

Jesus was Jewish. He went to synagogue "as was his tradition" and celebrated holy days such as Passover. But Jesus also healed on the Sabbath. Jesus points us to a God who is able to work within institutions and order, a God who is too big to be confined. God is constantly coloring outside the lines. Jesus challenges the structures that oppress and exclude, and busts through any traditions that put limitations on love. Love cannot be harnessed. ~ Shane Claiborne

I don't like favors; they oppress and make me fell like a slave. I'd rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent. ~ Louisa May Alcott

[O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention ... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often ... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country. ~ Fisher Ames

Religions all have the same timeline ... First the people feel the need to worship something. The sun or the giant corn of ear. That's the first thing. Then the guys say okay, now that we've got the giant corn thing going, how can we use it to oppress women? ~ Carol Anshaw

Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many. ~ Alexander Hamilton

A zeal for different opinions concerning religion ... [has] divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. ~ James Madison

Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.
Cesar Chavez
Address to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Nov. 9, 1984 ~ Cesar Chavez

This fills me with anger, although I already know that it is in the normal order of things that the privileged oppress the unprivileged: the social structure of the camp is based on this human law. ~ Primo Levi

We are all entitled to our opinions and religious beliefs, but we are not entitled to make shit up and then use the shit we made up to oppress other people. ~ Cheryl Strayed

Believe me, the gods spare the afflicted, and do not always oppress those who are unfortunate. ~ Ovid

The role of the intellectual, so it is said, is to speak truth to power. Noam Chomsky has dismissed this pious tag on two grounds. For one thing, power knows the truth already; it is just busy trying to conceal it. For another, it is not those in power who need the truth, but those they oppress. ~ Terry Eagleton

The audacity of a fine death always affects men. As soon as Enjolras folded his arms and accepted his end, the din of strife ceased in the room, and this chaos suddenly stilled into a sort of sepulchral solemnity. The menacing majesty of Enjolras disarmed and motionless, appeared to oppress this tumult, and this young man, haughty, bloody, and charming, who alone had not a wound, who was as indifferent as an invulnerable being, seemed, by the authority of his tranquil glance, to constrain this sinister rabble to kill him respectfully. His beauty, at that moment augmented by his pride, was resplendent, and he was fresh and rosy after the fearful four and twenty hours which had just elapsed, as though he could no more be fatigued than wounded. It was of him, possibly, that a witness spoke afterwards, before the council of war: "There was an insurgent whom I heard called Apollo." A National Guardsman who had taken aim at Enjolras, lowered his gun, saying: "It seems to me that I am about to shoot a flower. ~ Victor Hugo

It is always a fashion to advise disputants to sit round a table and solve disputes by dialogue and discussion, and not to resort to violent confrontation and wars. Whether in national disputes or in international conflicts parties are being constantly advised to avoid wars and to negotiate, while governments continue to oppress, persecute, and even commit genocide.

No doubt, it is a very salutary advice and a noble ideal, quite often well-meaning, too. Nobody fights a war for the pleasure of it. But the trouble is, it has never been pragmatic ideal, and never will be so long as governments being what they are and the tyranny of the majority and armed might being the ruling principle of democracy…The weaker is left to its own devices to shake off tyranny and oppression.

If the weaker side listened to this idealistic advice and waited till the end of time for a solution to its problems there would have been no wars of independence. If the American colonies of George III's England listened to such advice and continued to be governed by England and to pay taxes to England without representation in the Parliament at Westminster, there would have been no American War of Independence, no American Declaration of Independence, and there would be no United States of America today…" (pp.279-280) ~ V. Navaratnam

Bestowing upon men equality of rights is but giving license to the strong to oppress the weak. It begets the grossest inequality of condition. ~ George Fitzhugh

No man is quite so much a hero in the dark as in broad daylight, in solitude as in society, in the gloom of the churchyard as in the blaze of the drawing-room. The season and the place may be such as to oppress the stoutest heart with a mysterious awe, which, if not fear, is near akin to it. ~ William H. Prescott

The right of the judge to inflict punishment gives him both power and opportunity to oppress the innocent; yet none but crazy men will from thence determine that it is best to have neither a legislature nor judges. ~ Oliver Ellsworth

You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. ~ Cesar Chavez

There would be no need for political power in the Marxist sense of the organized power of one class used to oppress another. Nor, given Marx's idea that communism would come first to the most industrially advanced societies, and would be international in character, would there be any need for the state in the sense of an organization existing to defend the nation against attacks from other nations. Relieved from oppressive conditions that bring their interests into conflict, people would voluntarily co-operate with each other. The political state resting on armed force would become obsolete; its place would be taken by 'an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all' (CM 238). ~ Anonymous

The animals themselves are incapable of demanding their own liberation, or of protesting against their condition with votes, demonstrations, or bombs. Human beings have the power to continue to oppress other species forever, or until we make this planet unsuitable for living beings. Will our tyranny continue, proving that we really are the selfish tyrants that the most cynical of poets and philosophers have always said we are? Or will we rise to the challenge and prove our capacity for genuine altruism by ending our ruthless exploitation of the species in our power, not because we are forced to do so by rebels or terrorists, but because we recognize that our position is morally indefensible? The way in which we answer this question depends on the way in which each one of us, individually, answers it. ~ Peter Singer

In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But theworks of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.. ~ Edmund Burke

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

Governments that block the aspirations of their people, that steal or are corrupt, that oppress and torture or that deny freedom of expression and human rights should bear in mind that they will find it increasingly hard to escape the judgement of their own people, or where warranted, the reach of international law. ~ William Hague

Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people
they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress. ~ Paulo Freire

Harry! Don't you see? Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back! Voldemort ~ J.K. Rowling

America truly is the best idea for a country that anyone has ever come up with so far. Not only because we value democracy and the rights of the individual, but because we are always our own most effective voice of descent ... We must never mistake disagreement between Americans on political or moral issues to be an indication of their level of patriotism. If you don't like what I say or don't agree with where I stand on certain issues, then good. I'm glad we're in America, and don't have to oppress each other over it. We're not just a nation, we're not an ethnicity. We are a dream of justice that people have had for a thousand years. ~ Craig Ferguson

One is ashamed to say how little is needed for all men to be delivered from those calamities which now oppress them; it is only needful not to lie. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Joy sometimes has a strange effect: it can oppress us almost as much as sorrow. ~ Alexandre Dumas

Do well to impress; don't depress, suppress or oppress anyone. Inspire a soul; never despise! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

in all cities, these two distinct parties are found, and from this it arises that the people do not wish to be ruled nor oppressed by the nobles, and the nobles wish to rule and oppress the people; and from these two opposite desires there arises in cities one of three results, either a principality, self-government, or anarchy. A ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

If we have the potential to oppress or slay millions, it's because we also have the potential to liberate and love millions. ~ Gregory A. Boyd

I just believe that us as women - should not criticize nor pull down other women. And why? Because we're all just trying our best to be beautiful! We all just want to be loved, we want to be beautiful, we're all trying to leave our own legacy! The good news is that the universe is unending and that means there is enough space for each woman on earth to leave her own mark and to be her own legacy. To be her own kind of beautiful. So why spend even a second on trying to take away from another woman? Trying to steal, trying to criticize, trying to oppress? There is enough space for every woman and every kind of beautiful, in this vast cosmos! When you waste any amount of time trying to take what is another's - you are wasting your huge chunk of a galaxy that's already been given to you! ~ C. JoyBell C.

White feminists so focused on the disparity between white male/white female economic status as an indication of the negative impact of sexism that they drew no attention to the fact that poor and lower-class men are as able to oppress and brutalize women as any other group of men in American society. ~ Bell Hooks

They know that it is human nature to take up causes whereby a man may oppress his neighbor, no matter how unjustly ... Hence they have had no trouble in finding men who would preach the damnability and heresy of the new doctrine from the very pulpit ... ~ Galileo Galilei

Whoever is full of wisdom is naturally compassionate; in fact we recognize that someone has gained spiritual wisdom by seeing their compassionate behavior ... Individuals and countries with power need to develop wisdom and compassion, for without these attributes, there is a danger that the power will be used to oppress and exploit others. (31) ~ Ravi Ravindra

The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority; type people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power. ~ John Stuart Mill

It is necessary to remember, as we think critically about domination, that we all have the capacity to act in ways that oppress, dominate, wound (whether or not that power is institutionalized). It is necessary to remember that it is first the potential oppressor within that we must resist – the potential victim within that we must rescue – otherwise we cannot hope for an end to domination, for liberation. ~ Bell Hooks

Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being. ~ Mahavira

- Why should we be feminists? Why not egalitarians?

- "Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general- but to choose to use the vague expression human rights (or egalitarians) is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender.

It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human.

For centuries, the world divided human beings into two groups and then proceeded to exclude and oppress one group. It is only fair that the solution acknowledge that. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Almost everyone know the G3 gun. In the hands of the enemy the G3 is used to oppress and slaughter the people, but we capture a G3, it becomes an instrument for liberating the people, for punishing those who slaughter the people. It is the same gun, but the content has changed because those who use it have different aims, different objectives. ~ Samora Machel

Oh! if, when we oppress and grind our fellow-creatures, we bestowed but one thought on the dark evidences of human error, which, like dense and heavy clouds, are rising, slowly it is true, but not less surely, to Heaven, to pour their after-vengeance on our heads; if we heard but one instant, in imagination, the deep testimony of the dead men's voices, which no power can stifle, and no pride shut out; where would be the injury and injustice: the suffering, misery, cruelty, and wrong: that each day's life brings with it! ~ Charles Dickens

Freneuse is an oddball, an idler, without any aim in life! If you ask me, he has smoked too much opium in the East, and that explains his somnolence, his morbid lethargies. It's the hazardous legacy of bad habits! He has been comprehensively undone; the heavy influence of poisonous opiates never ceases to oppress him. Besides which, his steel-blue eyes are surely the eyes of a smoker of opium. He carries the drunken burden of hemp in his veins. Opium is like syphilis' - le Mazel released the word carelessly - 'it is a thing which stays for years and years in the blood, because the body is unable to purge itself. It must be absorbed, in the long run, by iodide. ~ Jean Lorrain

Empathy cannot by definition oppress anyone. ~ Simon Baron-Cohen

The tithe simply is not a sufficiently radical concept to embody the carefree unconcern for possessions that marks life in the Kingdom of God ...
It is quite possible to tithe and at the same time oppress the poor and needy ...
The tithe is not necessarily evil' it simply cannot provide a sufficient base for Jesus' call to carefree unconcern over provision ...
Perhaps the tithe can be a beginning way to acknowledge God as the owner of all things, but it is only a beginning and not an ending. ~ Richard J. Foster

Poverty is economic oppression.
Tyranny is political oppression.
Oppose those who oppress others.
Support those who liberate others. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

The error arises from the learned jurists deceiving themselves and others, by asserting that government is not what it really is, one set of men banded together to oppress another set of men , but, as shown by science, is the representation of the citizens in their collective capacity. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The American people have this to learn: that where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither person nor property is safe. ~ Frederick Douglass

Those who fail to exhibit positive attitudes, no matter the external reality, are seen as maladjusted and in need of assistance. Their attitudes need correction. Once we adopt an upbeat vision of reality, positive things will happen. This belief encourages us to flee from reality when reality does not elicit positive feelings. These specialists in "happiness" have formulated something they call the "Law of Attraction." It argues that we attract those things in life, whether it is money, relationships or employment, which we focus on. Suddenly, abused and battered wives or children, the unemployed, the depressed and mentally ill, the illiterate, the lonely, those grieving for lost loved ones, those crushed by poverty, the terminally ill, those fighting with addictions, those suffering from trauma, those trapped in menial and poorly paid jobs, those whose homes are in foreclosure or who are filing for bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills, are to blame for their negativity. The ideology justifies the cruelty of unfettered capitalism, shifting the blame from the power elite to those they oppress. And many of us have internalized this pernicious message, which in times of difficulty leads to personal despair, passivity and disillusionment. ~ Chris Hedges

Totalitarian systems are notably devoid of humor at every level. Laughter, which brings acceptance and freedom, is a threat to their rule through force and intimidation. It is hard to oppress people who have a good sense of humor. Beware the humorless, whether in a person, institution, or belief system; it is always accompanied by an impulse to control and dominate, even if its proclaimed objective is to create prosperity or peace. ~ David R. Hawkins

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are. ~ H.L. Mencken

Religion was created by insecure men to oppress women. Religion is the basis of all political ideas and it exempts the human being to find the "I" in them. ~ Mutabaruka

Men do oppress women. People are hurt by rigid sexist role patterns. These two realities coexist. Male oppression of women cannot be excused by the recognition that there are ways men are hurt by rigid sexist roles. Feminist activists should acknowledge that hurt, and work to change it - it exists. It does not erase or lessen male responsibility for supporting and perpetuating their power under patriarchy to exploit and oppress women in a manner far more grievous than the serious psychological stress and emotional pain caused by male conformity to rigid sexist role patterns. ~ Bell Hooks

I have often wondered if the irrational fear some men have of women that incites them to subjugate and oppress the female species begins in the adage: I brought you into this world, I can take you out! ~ Annastacia Dickerson

I have heard an argument that transgender people oppress transsexual people because we are trying to tear down the categories of male and female. But isn't this the same reactionary argument used against transmen and transwomen by those who argue that any challenges to assigned birth sex threaten the categories of man and woman? Transgender people are not dismantling the categories of man and woman. We are opening up a world of possibilities in addition. Each of us has a right to our identities. To claim one group of downtrodden people is oppressing another by their self-identification is to swing your guns away from those who really do oppress us, and to aim them at those who are already under siege. ~ Leslie Feinberg

It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others. ~ Eric Hoffer

No one escapes suffering. Everyone goes through tough times. Suffering is a part of our human condition and cannot be avoided. Setbacks, failures, pain, suffering, and hardships are all a part of life, but whether we are able to find peace within the storm depends on our resilience and perseverance. Whenever one of our children tells us that they don't want to fail at something, we remind them that there will be times in their life when they will fail, but it's how they come through it that matters. If we choose to focus on the negative, the failure itself, the darkness will oppress and consume us. Eventually it will destroy a person. We need to embrace the fact that we're human and our lives will be filled with suffering and hardship, but we have the ultimate hope and victory in Our Lord. ~ Karen Santorum

A special form of misery had begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it; it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a foretaste of an eternity on a square yard of space. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Unfortunately, in our society, power means the ability to dominate and oppress. ~ Vanna Bonta

Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which prevades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest. ~ James Madison

As for the significance of my nihilism…in a word, it is the foundation of my thoughts. The goal of my activities is the destruction of all living things. I feel boundless anger against parental authority, which crushed me under the high-sounding name of parental love, and against state and social authority, which abused me in the name of universal love.
Having observed the social reality that all living things on earth are incessantly engaged in a struggle for survival, that they kill each other to survive, I concluded that if there is an absolute, universal low on earth, it is the reality that the strong eat the weak. This, I believe, is the law and truth of the universe. Now that I have seen the truth about the struggle for survival and the fact that the strong win and the weak lose, I cannot join the ranks of the idealists and adopt an optimistic mode of thinking which dreams of the construction of a society that is without authority and control. As long as all living things do not disappear from the earth, the power relations based on this principle [of the strong crushing the weak] will persist. Because the wielders of power continue to defend their authority in the usual manner and oppress the weak - and because my past existence has been a story of oppression by all sources of authority - I decided to deny the rights of all authority, rebel against them, and stake not only my own life but that of all humanity in this endeavor.
For this reason I planned even ~ Mikiso Hane

The oppressed oppress the oppressors. And everyone including the oppressors agrees that this is only fair because the oppressors deserve to be oppressed. After all they are the oppressors. ~ Daniel Greenfield

The ultimate decision [of wearing hijab] must be that of the individual. Western opinions on the hijab or burkas are rather irrelevant. We don't get to decide for Muslim women what does or does not oppress them, no matter how highly we think of ourselves. ~ Roxane Gay

It is the height of stupidity to claim that men who for a thousand years have had the power to berate us, to fleece us and to oppress us with impunity, will now agree, with good grace, to be our equals. ~ Jean-Paul Marat

Positively you overwhelm me!' my lord said. 'You oppress me with kindness, sir ~ Georgette Heyer

When in the course of human development, existing institutions prove inadequate to the needs of man, when they serve merely to enslave, rob and oppress mankind, the people have the eternal right to rebel against, and overthrow, these institutions. ~ Emma Goldman

Paul ... informs us that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." From a Kingdom perspective, if it's got "flesh and blood" - if it's human - it's not our enemy. To the contrary, if it's got "flesh and blood" it's someone we're commanded to love and thus someone we're to be fighting for - even if they regard us as their enemy.
We may profoundly disagree with their political, ethical, and religious views. We may find their lifestyle disgusting. They may in fact be criminals that need to be locked up behind bars. They may threaten us and our nation. Still, from a Kingdom perspective, our struggle is never against other humans. Our struggle is rather for them and against the evil that works to oppress both them and us. ~ Gregory A. Boyd

The majority in a democracy has no more right to tyrannize over a minority than, under a different system, the latter would to oppress the former. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi

In solitude we find psychic distance, the perspective from which we can see, in the light of eternity, the created things that trap, worry, and oppress us. ~ Dallas Willard

When people are forced to respect civil rights and human rights or face legal consequences, they don't like it. Civil rights laws will be scrupulously observed only when people accept that it is morally wrong to oppress or discriminate against fellow human beings. That awareness can come only through education. A law will enable integration in public places, but it does not foster understanding or appreciation in the hearts of people who continue to live with their prejudices. ~ Arun Gandhi

Men must teach each other that real men do not violate or oppress women - and that a woman's place is not just in the home or the field, but in schools and offices and boardrooms. ~ Ban Ki-moon

The supreme law of the State is self-preservation at any cost. And since all States, ever since they came to exist upon the earth, have been condemned to perpetual struggle - a struggle against their own populations, whom they oppress and ruin, a struggle against all foreign States, every one of which can be strong only if the others are weak - and since the States cannot hold their own in this struggle unless they constantly keep on augmenting their power against their own subjects as well as against the neighborhood States - it follows that the supreme law of the State is the augmentation of its power to the detriment of internal liberty and external justice. ~ Mikhail Bakunin

When all the people in the world love one another, then the strong will not overpower the weak, the many will not oppress the few, the wealthy will not mock the poor, the honored will not disdain the humble, and the cunning will not deceive the simple. ~ Motsi Mabuse

Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow-man? Then make sure that no one shall possess power. ~ Mikhail Bakunin

Not only are you what you eat, but you also can be what's eating you. Don't become your problems or let them overtake you. ~ Anthony Liccione

When weight loss is conflated with veganism, it falls into dangerous area of body shaming and misogyny. Mainstream media loves to make women feel inferior when it comes to their bodies and unfortunately veganism has recently become another weapon and this sexist war on our society. Thin white women are used to sell veganism as a quick fix to a more desirable body at the expense of anyone who doesn't fit the cookie cutter idea of female perfection. In addition, these images and messages work to oppress women of colour and people living with disabilities. Selling veganism as anything other than caring for animals often leads to oppression, plain and simple. We need to resist this approach to promoting veganism by drawing the fight back to animals. Every single time. ~ Sean O'Callaghan

Here is something I have learned the hard way, but which a lot of well-meaning people in the West have a hard time accepting: All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. A culture that celebrates femininity and considers women to be the masters of their own lives is better than a culture that mutilates girls' genitals and confines them behind walls and veils or flogs or stones them for falling in love. A culture that protects women's rights by law is better than a culture in which a man can lawfully have four wives at once and women are denied alimony and half their inheritance. A culture that appoints women to its supreme court is better than a culture that declares that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man. It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women and part of all tribal cultures to institutionalize patronage, nepotism, and corruption. The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better. In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn't translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse. Many people genuinely feel pain at the thought of the death of whole cultures. I see this all the time. They ask, "Is there nothing beautiful in these cultures? Is there nothing beautiful in Islam?" There is beautiful architecture, yes, and encouragement of charity, yes, but Isl ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

When there is no adversary, foe or a government to oppress man, his demon will control him enough to make him inflict harm onto the weakest beings right next to him - like what happened to Joseph. So, don't cry for man, cry instead for God not to leave you fall into the hands of satan. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim

Be careful of raising me too high, brother. I have no special strength, unless it is in choosing good men to follow me. The great lie of cities is that we are all too weak to stand against those who oppress us. All I have done is see through that lie. I always fight, Kachiun. Kings and shahs depend on people remaining sheep, too afraid to rise up. All I ever did was realize I can be a wolf to them. ~ Conn Iggulden

In desperate attempt to give meaning to life, many turn to religion, because a struggle in the name of a faith is always a justification for some grand action that could transform the world.

'We are doing God's work,' they tell themselves.

And they become devout followers, then evangelists and, finally, fanatics.

They don't understand that religion was created in order to share the mystery and to worship, not to oppress or convert others. The great manifestation of the miracle of God is life. Tonight, I will weep for you, O Jerusalem, because that understanding of the Divine Unity is about to disappear for the next one thousand years. ~ Paulo Coelho

Those that have so much power over others as to be able to oppress them have seldom so much over themselves as not to oppress. ~ Matthew Henry

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species. ~ James Madison

Impression, not oppression determines the real life of a real person. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Ruth's days off always oppress her. The realm of choice paralyzes her. To sleep is to choose neither life nor death. ~ Kate Zambreno

GIOVANNI: But not all policeman think like you. Some of them like being policeman.
SARGENT: Sure, some guys buy into it. They get off giving orders. They need to oppress somebody else to feel good about themselves. ~ Dario Fo

The most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiplied oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties; not to oppress an individual or a few, but to break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the people at large of all share in the government, and all the checks by which it is limited. ~ John Adams

The pope also knows that wherever radical Islamists become a majority they oppress other faiths. In Muslim countries there is no equal competition for souls, hearts, and minds, because atheists and missionaries and communities of Christians are forced to operate in an atmosphere of physical menace. And
although there are plenty of mosques in Rome, not a single church is permitted in Riyadh. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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. ~ Kim Vogel Sawyer

Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters."

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppression ~ Frederick Douglass

When you grow up Indian, you quickly learn that the so-called American Dream isn't for you. For you that dream's a nightmare. Ask any Indian kid: you're out just walking across the street of some little off-reservation town and there's this white cop suddenly comes up to you, grabs you by your long hair, pushes you up against a car, frisks you, gives you a couple good jabs in the ribs with his nightstick, then sends you off with a warning sneer: "Watch yourself, Tonto!" He doesn't do that to white kids, just Indians. You can hear him chuckling with delight as you limp off, clutching your bruised ribs. If you talk smart when they hassle you, off to the slammer you go. Keep these Injuns in their place, you know.

Truth is, they actually need us. Who else would they fill up their jails and prisons with in places like the Dakotas and New Mexico if they didn't have Indians? Think of all the cops and judges and guards and lawyers who'd be out of work if they didn't have Indians to oppress! We keep the system going. We help give the American system of injustice the criminals it needs. At least being prison fodder is some kind of reason for being. Prison's the only university, the only finishing school many young Indian brothers ever see. Same for blacks and Latinos. So-called Latinos, of course, are what white man calls Indians who live south of the Rio Grande. White man's books will tell you there are only 2.5 million or so of us Indians here in America. But there are mor ~ Leonard Peltier

Jesus reveals a God who does not demand but who gives; who does not oppress but who raises up; who does not wound but who heals; who does not condemn but forgives. ~ Brennan Manning

Answering Emily
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How Frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
~Emily Dickinson

Is it really so hard to love this man
Which to your siren's calls been lured?
Cannot his kiss traverse the oceans depths
Piggy-backed upon his word?

Neither frigate, freighter nor chariot,
Hitched to Hermes's heels,
Can convey the breadth of purest love
That this heart truly feels. ~ Beryl Dov

Can satisfy the people, for their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter wishing to oppress, while the former only desire not to be oppressed. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

Monotheism by whatever name has been the rationale for war and genocide forever. And the Unchosen, the inferior Others, are always demonized as an excuse to oppress them. ~ Peter Matthiessen

When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others. ~ Desmond Tutu

Considering the natural lust for power so inherent in man, I fear the thirst of power will prevail to oppress the people. ~ George Mason