Quotes & Sayings About Oppressors

After years of working with missionaries, I am tempted to conclude that their endeavors merely prolong a dying race's agonies for ten or twenty years. The merciful plowman shoots a trusty horse grown too old for service. As philanthropists, might it not be our duty to likewise ameliorate the savages' sufferings by hastening their extinction? Think of your Red Indians, Adam, think on the treaties you Americans abrogate & renege on, time & time & time again. More humane, surely & more honest, just to knock the savages on the head & get it over with? — David Mitchell

In today's world no one is innocent, no one a neutral. A man is either with the oppressed or he is with the oppressors. He who takes no interest in politics gives his blessing to the prevailing order, that of the ruling classes and exploiting forces. — George Habash

Let Southern oppressors tremble-let their secret abettors tremble-let their Northern apologists tremble-let all the enemies of the persecuted blacks tremble. — William Lloyd Garrison

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. — Bertrand Russell

Grimm: Cat and Mouse (#1.18) (2012)
Edgar Waltz: You may think I'm a monster, but what I am is necessary. No society would survive without order. Free thought is not free. There's no such thing as revolution. The oppressed always become the oppressors and the cycle repeats itself over and over. The only way to win is to stay out of the cycle. You don't understand a word that I've been saying.
Rosalee Calvert: I'm sorry. I wasn't listening. — Jacob Grimm

This was the story of our lives: minor insurrections, tiny victories, a brief chance to ridicule our oppressors, little floating vessels of hope amid a great sea of uncertainty, deprivation and fear. — Jojo Moyes

God allows himself to be humiliated and crucified in the Son, in order to free the oppressors and the oppressed from oppression and to open up to them the situation of free, sympathetic humanity. — Jurgen Moltmann

When it comes to revolutionaries, trust only the sad ones. The enthusiastic ones are the oppressors of tomorrow. — William T. Vollmann

Had courage, wisdom, and reason always prevailed in people, there would not have been oppressions and oppressors. — Ameen Rihani

I was much more afraid in Montgomery when I had a gun in my house. When I decided that I couldn't keep a gun, I came face-to-face with the question of death and I dealt with it. From that point on, I no longer needed a gun nor have I been afraid. Had we become distracted by the question of my safety we would have lost the moral offensive and sunk to the level of our oppressors. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Never befriend the oppressed unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor. — Ogden Nash

Herzen is terrified of the oppressors, but he is terrified of the liberators too. He is terrified of them because for him they are the secular heirs of the religious bigots of the ages of faith; because anybody who has a cut and dried scheme, a straitjacket which he wishes to impose on humanity as the sole possible remedy for all human ills, is ultimately bound to create a situation intolerable for free human beings, for men like himself who want to express themselves, who want to have some area in which to develop their own resources, and are prepared to respect the originality, the spontaneity, the natural impulse towards self-expression on the part of other human beings too. — Isaiah Berlin

The oppressors do not favor promoting the community as a whole, but rather selected leaders. — Paulo Freire

When you're talking about an authority figure oppressing against people, it's the people that hold that authority figure up. If you want to get free of this bondage, then we need to think about ways to free ourselves rather than looking to the oppressors to free us. — Keith Stanfield

Oppressors themselves acknowledge that even the weakest of their subjects must agree to be oppressed. — James P. Carse

O'Neill could feel rising off them devotion and love for him, and he knew they would lay down their lives for their high chieftain and for the new cause, only now taking shape in their heads. The cause. Unthinkable just a year before - freedom from occupation. Freedom from oppression. Indeed, their heinous oppressors were approaching - English soldiers who had slaughtered their brothers, their wives, their mothers. Their children. Soldiers who had mindlessly laid waste to their home provinces. To Ireland. Never before had these men fought for the whole of this ancient land, but now they understood, and their hearts - God bless their staunch hearts - were strong and ready to fight. Raising his sword high above his head, O'Neill, with slow deliberation, lowered it, and the glorious blue morning exploded into sound. C — Robin Maxwell

I realize now how lucky I was, in the total absence of role models, to have only men to rebel against. Today's women students are meeting their oppressors in dangerously seductive new form, as successful congenial female professors who view themselves as victims of a rigid foreign ideology. — Camille Paglia

Here though, there are no oppressors. No one's forcing you to do this. You willingly tie yourself to these leashes. And you willingly become utterly socially autistic. You no longer pick up on basic human communication clues. You're at a table with three humans, all of whom are looking at you and trying to talk to you, and you're staring at a screen! Searching for strangers in ... Dubai! — Dave Eggers

Evil can be opposed without being mirrored. Oppressors can be resisted without being emulated. Enemies can be neutralized without being destroyed. — Walter Wink

We're coming with a mighty force to end the reign of your oppressors. We are coming to bring you food and medicine and a better life. And we are coming and we will not stop, we will not relent until your country is free. — George W. Bush

I saw the tears of the oppressed
and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors
and they have no comforter.
And I declared that the dead,
who had already died,
are happier than the living,
who are still alive.
But better than both
is the one who has never been born,
who has not seen the evil
that is done under the sun. — Anonymous

The concept of "social justice," which purports to promote equality among the lines of gender and ethnicity, is based on intersectional feminist theory. Per the theory, certain classes of people are naturally oppressors, while others are victims. There's nothing more divisive than that. — Ian Miles Cheong

O Ali, whenever any community has opposed after the death of their Prophet, then the wrong doers have over powered those who are on truth and Allah decided that this community also has opposition and disunity. If He wanted, then He would unite them all on guidance until not even two people from His creation would quarrel in any of His matters, and those with lower status would not deny the status of those who are higher. If He wanted, He would send His Punishment sooner and withdraw His Bounties until the oppressors would be proven at fault and the truth would be known with whom it is, but He has made the world a place for action and hereafter a place to stay in forever. "That He may reward those who do evil according to what they do and (that) He may reward those who do good with goodness." (Surah Najm: 31) So — Sulaym Ibn Qays Al-Hilali

The greatest joy of the oppressed people, is enjoying his freedom while,
the greatest misfortune of the oppressors is to suffer for the joy of his people. — Miguel Angel Saez Gutierrez

Never dance according to the tune of music played by your oppressors.
Pray to have enough courage, grace to be tolerant and compassionate. — Lailah Gifty Akita

In the Empire, the Scholars are not allowed to read and, like so many bullies and power-seekers who hide behind ideologies to justify the terrible things they do, their oppressors wear masks. 'An Ember in the Ashes' suggests that such masks (literal or figurative) don't work. Not forever, anyway. Masks only cover faces. It's actions that show who we are. — Chelsey Philpot

It is impossible to Name and Act against oppression if there are no Nameable oppressors. — Mary Daly

Forgiveness is commendable, but apply not ointment to the wound of an oppressor. — Saadi

When we place ourselves in a position of judgment, then we turn ourselves into oppressors. Healthy self-esteem cannot exist side-by-side with oppression of any kind. — Julia A. Boyd

The colonization of the Southern economy by capitalists from the North gave lynching its most vigorous impulse. If Black people, by means of terror and violence, could remain the most brutally exploited group within the swelling ranks of the working class, the capitalists could enjoy a double advantage. Extra profits would result from the superexploitation of Black labor, and white workers' hostilities toward their employers would be defused. White workers who assented to lynching necessarily assumed a posture of racial solidarity with the white men who were really their oppressors. This was a critical moment in the popularization of racist ideology. — Angela Y. Davis

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

Bread and water will not break me, and if you choose to isolate me, I shall have only but more time to plot against my oppressors. — J.V. Hart

It means understanding that different kinds of oppression are interlinked, and that one can't liberate only one group without the others. It means acknowledging kyriarchy and intersectionality - the fact that along different axes, we're all both oppressed and oppressors, privileged and disprivileged. — Shiri Eisner

The oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressors." "They call themselves ignorant and say the 'professor' is the one who has knowledge and to whom they should listen." "Almost never do they realize that they, too, 'know things' they have learned in their relations with the world. — Paulo Freire

We are all guests on this earth. We come and we go. All of us. The oppressors and the oppressed, the weak and the strong. We are all here for a mere moment. — Jana Kotaishova

White women and black men have it both ways. They can act as oppressor or be oppressed. Black men may be victimized by racism, but sexism allows them to act as exploiters and oppressors of women. White women may be victimized by sexism, but racism enables them to act as exploiters and oppressors of black people. Both groups have led liberation movements that favor their interests and support the continued oppression of other groups. Black male sexism has undermined struggles to eradicate racism just as white female racism undermines feminist struggle. As long as these two groups or any group defines liberation as gaining social equality with ruling class white men, they have a vested interest in the continued exploitation and oppression of others. — Bell Hooks

As people get more desperate, history suggests that they're not going to rise in a mighty proletarian tidal wave and wash away their oppressors. They're gonna turn on each other. — Alan Moore

If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and lone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors. — Abraham Lincoln

Isaiah 11.1-9 goes a step further, giving this picture of the messiah a new depth. The coming messiah, who springs from the house of Jesse, is the true 'anointed one'. Yahweh's ruach will 'rest' on him,
and will equip him with wisdom, understanding, counsel and strength, and with the fear of the Lord' (cf. 11 Sam. 23.2). His legitimation depends on the divine righteousness, not on his Davidic origin. He will bring justice to the poor and an equitable judgment to the miserable, and he will defeat the wicked - the oppressors. So the kingdom of his righteousness does not merely embrace poor human beings. He brings peace to the whole of creation, peace between man and beast, and peace among the beasts themselves (vv. 6-8). This kingdom will reach out from his holy place Mount Zion, so that 'the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord' - a vision which no doubt corresponds to Isaiah's vision at his call (6.3): 'the whole earth is full of his glory'. — Jurgen Moltmann

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. — Paulo Freire

My great lesson from Auschwitz is: whoever wants to dehumanize any other must first be dehumanized himself.
The oppressors are no longer really human, whatever uniform they wear. — Hajo Meyer

Jews must learn to say without excuse, without equivocation: despite our history and our powerlessness in the past, despite allthe injustices that we have endured
today, now, the Palestinians are the victims of oppression, and their oppressors are the Israelis. — Irena Klepfisz

Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future. — Audre Lorde

Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace. — James Madison

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you. — George W. Bush

This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. — Paulo Freire

Good evening, London. I would introduce myself, but truth to tell, I do not have a name. You can call me "V". 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. In anarchy, there is another way. With anarchy, from rubble comes new life, hope reinstated. They say anarchy's dead, but see ... reports of my death were ... exaggerated. Tomorrow, Downing Street will be destroyed, the Head reduced to ruins, an end to what has gone before. Tonight, you must choose what comes next. Lives of our own, or a return to chains. Choose carefully. And so, adieu. — Alan Moore

The liberation of adulthood as we'd conceived it from below was a pipe-dream; with oppressors deposed we became our own tyrants. — Lionel Shriver

Non Violence and Religion:
Both designed to keep the oppressed from murdering their oppressors. — Darnell Lamont Walker

Take sides. Neutrality always serves the oppressor and never the oppressed. — Elie Wiesel

Peace is not just about the absence of conflict; it's also about the presence of justice. Martin Luther King Jr. even distinguished between "the devil's peace" and God's true peace. A counterfeit peace exists when people are pacified or distracted or so beat up and tired of fighting that all seems calm. But true peace does not exist until there is justice, restoration, forgiveness. Peacemaking doesn't mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free. — Shane Claiborne

Democracy alone can supply the vitalizing force to stir the peoples of the world into triumphant action, not only against their human oppressors, but also against their ancient enemies-hunger, misery, and despair. — Harry S. Truman

We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are not saviours. We are simply a tiny sign, among thousands of others, that love is possible, that the world is not condemned to a struggle between oppressors and oppressed, that class and racial warfare is not inevitable. — Jean Vanier

Let us have an education, that shall practically develop our thinking faculties and manhood; and then, and only then, shall we be able to vie with our oppressors, go where we may ... — Martin Delany

Of course it is fine to highlight any group that you feel is important. But it's becoming impossible to define that group as "oppressed," because now every group claims to be oppressed, and none admit they are oppressors. White males used to be the bad guys, but now even they have caught the fever. White males are no longer a single group that can be blamed for oppression, because most of them now claim to belong to an oppressed or marginalized group themselves: they are drug addicts, physically handicapped, alcoholics, were sexually abused as a child, victims of an absent father, abducted by aliens, or turned into "success objects" by women. They can't oppress anybody because they are too busy being oppressed themselves. Besides, — Ken Wilber

To sit back and do nothing is to cooperate with the oppressor. — Jane Elliott

We should be less concerned about hurting the feelings of the oppressors and more concerned about standing in solidarity with the oppressed. — Remi Kanazi

The oppressors develop a series of methods precluding any presentation of the world as a problem and showing it rather as a fixed entity, as something given
something to which people, as mere spectators, must adapt. — Paulo Freire

P42- the oppressed, as objects, as "things", have no purposes except those their oppressors prescribe for them. — Paulo Freire

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. — John Locke

Oppressors do not get to be oppressors in a single sweep. They manage it because little by little, we make them that. We overlook too much in the beginning and wonder why we lost control in the end. — Joan D. Chittister

Oppressors specialise in rasing wolves from amonst the sheep then together with the wolves devour the sheep — Rassool Jibraeel Snyman

Men neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demi-gods; religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors. — Mary Wollstonecraft

A man of true faith should never kill for his belief, but he should certainly be willing to die for it. That's what set Jesus apart. He loved His oppressors, prayed for His detractors, forgave His torturers, and died for His enemies. If there's ever been a real God on earth, my money is on Jesus of Nazareth. — Jared Brock

The grave unites; where e'en the great find rest, And blended lie th' oppressor and th' oppressed! — Alexander Pope

P40- this violence, as a process, is perpetuated from generation to generation of oppressors, who become its heirs and are shaped by it. — Paulo Freire

Until you're prepared to kill your parents, you're not really prepared to change the country because our parents are our first oppressors. — Jerry Rubin

We have overcome economic devastation, defeated mighty oppressors, and lifted up generation after generation of Americans. We can - and we will - do it again. For that is our birthright as members of the American family - white, black, Hispanic, Asian, immigrant, or descendant of the Founding Fathers themselves. — Brian Sandoval

So what does it look like to live a life worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ? It looks like walking with, loving with, and doing life with those who are different from you. What binds you together is Christ. It looks like striving together to make Christ known. What motivates you is Christ. And it looks like standing with courage against all oppressors, natural or supernatural. What secures you is Christ. — Matt Chandler

The Catholics had been in the position of oppressors, and the Protestants of the oppressed — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The rights of no oppressed people have ever yet been obtained by a voluntary act of justice on the part of the oppressors. — Martin Delany

As a child she had believed that wrongs would always be righted, that somehow the world would not let the innocent suffer, but now she realised that this was not true. Old oppressors were replaced by new ones, from another distant place or from right next door. Old lies were replaced by new ones, backed up by old threats. — Alexander McCall Smith

Because there's something about him - there's always been something about him that's intrigued me and I don't understand it. I wish I could ignore it but I can't. Because I look at him and wonder if maybe it's just me? Maybe I'm naive?
But I see layers, shades of gold and green and a person who's never been given a chance to be human and I wonder if I'm just as cruel as my own oppressors if I decide that society is right, that some people are too far gone, that sometimes you can't turn back, that there are people in this world who don't deserve a second chance and I can't I can't I can't
I can't help but disagree. — Tahereh Mafi

Man is the cruelest animal," says Zarathustra. "When gazing at tragedies, bull-fights, crucifixations he hath hitherto felt happier than at any other time on Earth. And when he invented Hell ... lo, Hell was his Heaven on Earth"; he could put up with suffering now, by contemplating the eternal punishment of his oppressors in the other world. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The actions of government, we are told, bear down only on imprudent souls who provoke them. The man who resigns himself and keeps silent is always safe. Reassured by this worthless and specious argument, we do not protest against the oppressors. Instead we find fault with the victims. Nobody knows how to be brave even prudentially. Everyone stays silent, keeping his head low in the self-deceiving hope of disarming the powers that be by his silence. People give despotism free access, flattering themselves they will be treated with consideration. Eyes to the ground, each person walks in silence the narrow path leading him safely to the tomb. — Benjamin Constant

In Hindu mythology, there is no one but ourselves to blame for our problems: neither God nor any oppressors. The idea of rebirth aims to evoke acceptance of the present, and responsibility for the future. Our immortal soul is tossed from one life to another as long as our mind refuses to do darshan. This is made most explicit in the story of Karna in the Mahabharata. — Devdutt Pattanaik

It would be a contradiction in terms if the oppressors not only defended but actually implemented a liberating education. — Paulo Freire

Some people," Aunt Emily answered sharply, "are so busy seeing all sides of every issue that they neutralize concern and prevent necessary action. There's no strength in seeing all sides unless you can act where real measurable injustice exists. A lot of academic talk just immobilizes the oppressed and maintains oppressors in their positions of power. — Joy Kogawa

Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings! the Hungarian police were screaming.
That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death. — Elie Wiesel

Our task is not to liberate the oppressed, but to liberate the oppressors — Nelson Mandela

All war is fratricide, and there is therefore an infinite chain of blame that winds its circuitous route back and forth across the path and under the feet of every people and every nation, so that a people who are the victims of one time become the victimisers a generation later, and newly liberated nations resort immediately to the means of their former oppressors. — Louis De Bernieres

Bullies, oppressors and all men who do violence to the rights of others are guilty not only of their own crimes, but also of the corruption they bring into the hearts of their victims. — Alessandro Manzoni

The oppressed find in the oppressors their model of 'manhood.' — Paulo Freire

The warring love and hatred
love for his people and hatred for the oppressors of his people
that left him exhausted and sick in spirit. — Carson McCullers

The engine of liberty must be greased with the blood of both the oppressors and the oppressed. There is no better lubrication for something so prone to rust and seizure." Sirius Vant, in a speech to the Sun Dogs, Unknown Planet, Aashaanti Corridor, final stages of the Triton Wars — Sara King

By placing confidence in violent means, one has chosen the very type of struggle with which the oppressors nearly always have superiority. — Gene Sharp

Don't oppress, don't accept to be oppressed and you will live free. — Auliq Ice

They are the typical product of the structure of the German Lager: if one offers a position of privilege to a few individuals in a state of slavery, exacting in exchange the betrayal of a natural solidarity with their
comrades, there will certainly be someone who will accept. He will be withdrawn from the common law and will become untouchable; the more power that he is given, the more he will be consequently hateful and
hated. When he is given the command of a group of unfortunates, with the right of life or death over them, he will be cruel and tyrannical, because he will understand that if he is not sufficiently so, someone else, judged more suitable, will take over his post.
Moreover, his capacity for hatred, unfulfilled in the direction of the oppressors, will double back, beyond all reason, on the oppressed; and he will only be satisfied when he has unloaded onto his underlings the injury received from above. — Primo Levi

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. — Alan Moore

It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors. — Paulo Freire

I have brought evil to many places," he said, "but usually there has already been evil to match mine. I seek no excuses, for I know what I am and I know what I have done. I have slain malignant sorcerers and destroyed oppressors, but I have also been responsible for slaying fine men, and a woman, my cousin, whom I loved, I killed - or my sword did. — Michael Moorcock

The church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors ... For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Welcome atheism! Welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by these Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke put together have done! — Frederick Douglass

No, the shark in an updated JAWS could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim, for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors. — Peter Benchley

SJWs... picture themselves as persecuted, oppressed crusaders for peace and equality....These are people who, on a regular basis, call for violence and genocide against "oppressors", whether it's white people, heterosexual people, thin people, or just anyone who even slightly disagrees with them. — Joshua Goldberg

In other words, no matter how well documented or noble our cause is, it won't be helped by our feeling aggression toward the oppressors or those who are promoting the danger. Nothing will ever change through aggression. — Pema Chodron

Some live for their own joy and pleasure.
Some live to ease the burdens of others.
Then there are those who seem to exist for pain's sake only, that in the end the wrathful fire sent to consume their oppressors will be justified."

~ In loving memory of Miss Annabelle Fancher — Richelle E. Goodrich

Dictators and oppressors should continue to fear me because I will be here for a long time. — Lech Walesa

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. — Joseph Campbell

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

Being doped is a pleasure you pay for. There was always opium there for the people
in the end it tainted their whole faith. If the Church had not always stood so watchfully behind the ruling powers, there would not have been such attacks against everything it stood for
although of course it may have been competing with them for the first place among the rulers, as in the Middle Ages. Whenever it was a question of keeping the serfs, and then the paid slaves down, the dope-dealers came unfailingly to the help of the oppressors. — Ernst Bloch