Oppressors Quotes by Jean Vanier, Jerry Rubin, Cesar Chavez, Elie Wiesel, William Butler Yeats, Florence King and many others.
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.
The ignorance of the oppressed is strength for the oppressor.
But nonviolence was never for the oppressor; it was for the oppressed.
Atonement is a journey of healing that moves from the pain between a victim and an oppressor, through forgiveness, the making of amends, the relief of anger and compassion for the victim, to deep reconciliation.
Tout reВ volutionnaire finit en oppresseur ou en heВ reВ tique. Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.
The behavior and reactions of the oppressed, which lead the oppressor to practice cultural invasion, should evoke from the revolutionary a different theory of action. What distinguishes revolutionary leaders from the dominant elite is not only their objectives, but their procedures.
To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty.
It is said that this is a man’s world, and sometimes, it is. For every casket girl that was saved, countless others were not. But women are more resilient than given credit for. And some women, well, let’s just say their oppressors had better watch out. I, too, am resilient, and I’m tired of being oppressed.
The method of nonviolence seeks not to humiliate and not to defeat the oppressor, but it seeks to win his friendship and his understanding. And thereby and therefore the aftermath of this method is reconciliation.
Let Southern oppressors tremble-let their secret abettors tremble-let their Northern apologists tremble-let all the enemies of the persecuted blacks tremble.
Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.
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.
It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors.
Our parents are our first oppressors.
No sincere desire of doing good need make an enemy of a single human being; that philanthropy has surely a flaw in it which cannot sympathize with the oppressor equally as with the oppressed.
Justice remains the tool of a few powerful interests; legal interpretations will continue to be made to suit the convenience of the oppressor powers.
It is startling to see how the oppressed almost invariably shape themselves in the image of their hated oppressors.
Since mankind’s dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We’ve seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.
You are persecuted and despised. It were better that a person should be the oppressed than that he should be the oppressor; and fitter that he should be a victim to the frailty of human instincts than that he should be powerful and crush the flowers of life and disfigure the beauties of feeling with his desire.
A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have.
Our task is not to liberate the oppressed, but to liberate the oppressors
Matter of internal security – the age-old cry of the oppressor. Picard
But for the use of physical punishment by, and fear of their oppressors, animals would never be a part of a circus.
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force (these are words we are allowed to use in California).
Had courage, wisdom, and reason always prevailed in people, there would not have been oppressions and oppressors.
We shall never secure emancipation from the tyranny of the white oppressor until we have achieved it in our own souls.
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had.
In order to have the continued opportunity to express their “generosity” the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well.
REVOLUTIONARY: An oppressed person waiting for the opportunity to become an oppressor.
Dehumanization, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend, that together we succeed in building a better world through human understanding and love, and that in doing so we may reduce the pain and suffering of all sentient beings.
You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.
God wants to set the oppressed free from being oppressed and the oppressors free from oppressing.
No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption (Freire, 1970, p. 54).