Quotes & Sayings About The Downtrodden

It's a new world, brother. And we, the downtrodden, are taking it back. (Madoc) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Wonder Woman represented modern America as leader of
the free world, and champion of the downtrodden. She forsook her kingdom and immortality to make the whole world a better place and, most of all, to fight for the rights of females. Just as America emerged as a global peacekeeper, Wonder Woman's adventures took her wherever women were in peril and their freedom was threatened, like the planet Venus with its butterfly-winged women, or the subterranean paradise Eveland.'Ihe "loving ways of the Amazons" that she was sent to teach the world were presumably the wisdom of the matrilineal society that predated the Greeks. "I can make bad men good and weak woman strong!" she says, as she spreads her message of empowerment across "man's world. — Mike Madrid

I realized after reading the fourth chapter of St. John's Gospel, that Christ was truly the Divine Saviour he claimed to be, and no one but He could transform and uplift the downtrodden women of India ... Thus my heart was drawn to the religion of Christ. — Pandita Ramabai

I have a big passion about civil rights for everyone - whoever is being downtrodden at the moment, it doesn't matter: racial discrimination or sexual orientation or gender. Whatever it is, I'm there. I think I was a born civil rights activist. I can't stand the smashing of a community. It's not fair and it's not right. — Pauley Perrette

The Jewish background is not that far from the black groove. Blacks are downtrodden, Jews are downtrodden, therefore they have something in common in that affliction. Being downtrodden often makes one more empathetic and sympathetic. — Jerry Leiber

Happy are the downtrodden. — Boris Pasternak

Often, this has only meant a change in tyranny. In other words, one ruling class is replaced by another - sometimes by one that is more efficient and therefore still more capable of maintaining itself - while the poor and downtrodden remain poor and downtrodden or become even worse off. — Isaac Asimov

The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor. — A. Philip Randolph

I do not doubt that our country will finally come through safe and undivided. But do not misunderstand me ... I do not rely on the patriotism of our people ... the bravery and devotion of the boys in blue ... (or) the loyalty and skill of our generals ... But the God of our fathers, Who raised up this country to be the refuge and asylum of the oppressed and downtrodden of all nations, will not let it perish now. I may not live to see it ... I do not expect to see it, but God will bring us through safe. — Abraham Lincoln

Mmmm, as I recall, if you go around telling people that they are downtrodden, you tend to make two separate enemies: the people who are doing the downtreading and have no intention of stopping, and the people who are downtrodden, but nevertheless
people being who they are
don't want to know. They can get quite nasty about it. — Terry Pratchett

A whole generation of veteran composers has never taken a stand or provided an example and has produced in the music academies generations of docile workers for the music industry. What can you expect from downtrodden workers who see music as a type of profession, like stenography, and not an act of creation that by its nature is subversive? — Itay Talgam

NDCC is an admirable job of amassing information to prove that communism is socialism and socialism (a plot to enslave the world) is not a movement of the downtrodden but a scheme supported and directed by the wealthiest of people. If enough Americans read and act upon NDCC, they really can save the Republic from the conspirators
whose plans for the destruction of our country are galloping fast toward completion. — Dan Smoot

If you look to the downtrodden and wonder why they can't pull themselves out of poverty and get a nice job like you, you are committing the just-world fallacy. You are ignoring the unearned blessings of your station. — David McRaney

Feel, my children, feel; feel for the poor, the ignorant, the downtrodden; feel till the heart stops and the brain reels and you think you will go mad; then pour the soul out at the feet of the Lord, and then will come power, help and indomitable energy. — Swami Vivekananda

You simply cannot give to the world all that you have to give to the world if you do not remain true to your own "selfish" desires. You have a unique set of precious values that can only be fulfilled by pursuing what drives you the most: your passions and dreams. Could Thomas Edison have tended to the downtrodden as Mother Teresa did? Could Albert Einstein have preached salvation as Martin Luther King Jr. did? Could Abraham Lincoln have built cars like Henry Ford? Always, the masses benefit from the individuals who insist on marching to the beat of their own drummer. — Mike Dooley

No nation's flag is great or glorious if it flies over the weak and downtrodden, even if they raise and protect it out of misguided allegiance. — Bryant McGill

Let each one of us pray day and night for the downtrodden millions who are held fast by poverty, priestcraft, and tyranny. Pray day and night for them. I care more to preach religion to them than to the high and the rich. — Swami Vivekananda

And the downtrodden found refuge in dilapidation; and were happy there because it was theirs and no one else's; bare of pretences and expectations, this place became a haven of solace and a sanctum for peace. — C.M. Stunich

All of us remember the home of our childhood. Interestingly, our thoughts do not dwell on whether the house was large or small, the neighborhood fashionable or downtrodden. Rather, we delight in the experiences we shared as a family. The home is the laboratory of our lives, and what we learn there largely determines what we do when we leave there. — Thomas S. Monson

Lowe has broken from the Christianity of his parents, a faith that now seems hopelessly out of date. The meek shall no longer inherit the earth; the go-getters will get it and everything that goes with it. The Christ who went among the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, among lepers and prostitutes, really had no marketing savvy. He has been transfigured into a latter-day entrepreneur, the greatest superstar sales person of all time, who built a multinational outfit from scratch. — Eric Schlosser

The heart of the Christian Gospel is precisely that God is the all holy One; the all powerful One is also the One full of mercy and compassion. He is not a neutral God inhabiting some inaccessible Mount Olympus. He is a God who cares about His children and cares enormously for the weak, the poor, the naked, the downtrodden, the despised. He takes their side not because they are good, since many of them are demonstrably not so. He takes their side because He is that kind of God, and they have no one else to champion them. — Desmond Tutu

As individuals, we also are apt to use the canon as a cannon. We invoke the stripling warriors of Helaman and the iron rod of Lehi's vision to ground our own version of unflinching obedience. Or we invoke the lessons of the Liahona to support our more spontaneous and flexible approach to gospel living. In America, some Mormons find Jesus' ministry to the downtrodden and King Benjamin's words about withholding judgment but not relief from the beggar to be apt endorsement of their preferred political policies. At the other end of the spectrum, some invoke the war in heaven fought over agency and consider the Mormon ethic of self-reliance to be adequate support for a different political outlook. Or, sometimes individuals even employ the cannon against the canon, citing inconsistencies and imperfections in the record as grounds for nonbelief in the principle of inspiration, one's faith tradition, or even God. — Terryl L. Givens

Grace Murphy, defender of the downtrodden! Snarking one villain at a time with her acerbic wit and pointy boobs! If there was going to be super-natural mojo involved in my life, the least I could ask for was non-sagging boobs. — Nicole Hamlett

First, contrary to popular belief, Buddhists can actually be very anxious people. That's often why they become Buddhists in the first place. Buddhism was made for the anxious like Christianity was made for the downtrodden or AA for the addicted. Its entire purpose is to foster equanimity, to tame excesses of thought and emotion. The Buddhists have a great term for these excesses. They refer to them as the condition of "monkey mind." A person in the throes of monkey mind suffers from a consciousness whose constituent parts will not stop bouncing from skull-side to skull-side, which keep flipping and jumping and flinging feces at the walls and swinging from loose neurons like howlers from vines. Buddhist practices are designed explicitly to collar these monkeys of the mind and bring them down to earth - to pacify them. Is it any wonder that Buddhism has had such tremendous success in the bastions of American nervousness, on the West Coast and in the New York metro area? — Daniel Smith

If you believe the world will be a better place because you have both the desire and the means to take charge, that's the time for you to jump in. It doesn't matter if you rise up to take the lead only once or twice in your entire working life or if you do it daily. There are so many moments when you can make a difference--by enriching an outcome, saving a great idea, defending the beleaguered or downtrodden, and not least, expressing your own gifts and wisdom. — Charlotte Beers

It is only when he speaks German, as now, that he allows himself to lament the enslavement of the world's downtrodden classes. We cannot live in a bubble, Mr. Mundy. Comfortable ignorance is not a solution. In German student societies that I was not permitted to join, they made a toast: 'Better to be a salamander, and live in the fire. — John Le Carre

I've always liked the downtrodden character on different shows. Before 'Parks,' I loved the Toby character on 'The Office.' I do like playing that type of thing. — Jim O'Heir

Must the Christian go around looking for a cross to bear, seeking to suffer? No, insisted Bonhoeffer. Opportunities for bearing crosses will occur along life's way and all that is required is the willingness to act when the time comes. The needs of the neighbor, especially those of the weak and downtrodden, the victimized and the persecuted, the ill and the lonely, will become abundantly evident. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As Christians we have a responsibility toward the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the many innocent people around the world who are caught in wars, natural disasters, and situations beyond their control. — Billy Graham

Throughout all the pain of enslavement and despotism, of inquisition, forced conversion, and massacre, the Jewish people has carried in its heart the yearning for freedom and has given this craving a folk expression which includes every soul in Israel, every single downtrodden pauperized soul! — Berl Katznelson

We don't need to actually solve the problems of the poor, the dalits, the downtrodden. Give them education and they will become self-confident. They will solve their own problems. So 'education' is actually the solution to all problems! — Rashmi Bansal

When you break it all down, my punk rock is my dad's blues. It's music from the underground, and it's real, and it's written for the downtrodden in uncertain times. — Frank Iero

I will be satisfied if my epitaph shall be written thus: 'Here lies one who never rose to any eminence, who only courted the low ambition to have it said that he striven to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the lowly, the
downtrodden of every race and language and color.' — Thaddeus Stevens

They try to paint the picture that I was this downtrodden, ugly girl who was unpopular in school and in life, and then I got this role and now I'm awesome. But the truth is that I've been awesome, and then I got this role. — Gabourey Sidibe

People of all faiths are responsible to help the weak, the downtrodden, the sick, and the helpless, especially children. And of all the religions in the world, Christians are the only ones that are commanded not to judge, yet we do every day
gay people, ethnicities different from our own, people in mixed relationships, people with gifts they were born with, power they were born with, genetic mutations they were born with, illnesses of the brain and body. I've got a little girl's mother to save, and, yes, she's a witch. Are you gonna make it possible for me to save her? — Faith Hunter

But there are still plenty of people who will tell you that the most evil thing about Karl Marx was what he said about religion. He said it was the opium of the lower classes, as though he thought religion was bad for people, and he wanted to get rid of it. But when Marx said that, back in the 1840s, his use of the word "opium" wasn't simply metaphorical. Back then real opium was the only painkiller available, for toothaches or cancer of the throat, or whatever. He himself had used it. As a sincere friend of the downtrodden, he was saying he was glad they had something which could ease their pain at least a little bit, which was religion. He liked religion for doing that, and certainly didn't want to abolish it. OK? He might have said today as I say tonight, "Religion can be Tylenol for a lot of unhappy people, and I'm so glad it works. — Kurt Vonnegut

Can you see the pictures before you on how to intervene on behalf of the oppressed? Are you thinking of what to do to the disenfranchised of your society? Do you notice the abused of your society? Can you see the afflicted that are crying for that justice every day? What of those who are been maltreated on daily basis, do you think they need that justice? Did you see any of those who are downtrodden, would that justice help them? Anyone oppressed and suppressed around you, can you serve them justice? — Sunday Adelaja

How do you tell a young girl in her formative years that the real value, real wealth is only in acquisition of knowledge through higher education? In caring for the downtrodden as well as the learned. In committing yourself to the matters of culture and creativity, when your own life has been complete antithesis of the same? — Vinod Pande

Johnny Cash was the champion of the voiceless, the underdogs and the
downtrodden. He was also something of a holy terror, like Abraham Lincoln
with a wild side. He represented the best of America. — Kris Kristofferson

Stop being so greedy, and so selfish. Realize that there is more to the world than your big houses and fancy stores. People are starving and you worry about oil for your cars. Babies are dying of thirst and you search the fashion pages for the latest styles. Nations like ours are drowing in poverty, but your people don't even hear our cries for help. You shut your ears to the voices of those who try to tell you these things. You label them radicals or Communists. You must open your hearts to the poor and downtrodden, instead of driving them further into poverty and servitude. There's not much time left. If you don't change, you're doomed. — John Perkins

The downtrodden are the great creators of slang. — Anthony Burgess

It's hard to get the downtrodden working-class wifey sometimes because 'You don't look like it'. Well, that's weird because I grew up on a scheme in Paisley. But everyone's got a viewpoint about what you should look like, and it's tainted by prejudices and assumptions. — Neve McIntosh

Do the rhetorical quarrels of bourgeois political parties have anything to do with the interests of the humble and downtrodden? — Mario Vargas-Llosa

Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think ...
I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.
However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed. — Peter Rollins

Ferbin's father had had the same robustly pragmatic view of religion as he'd had of everything else. In his opinion, only the very poor and downtrodden really needed religion, to make their laborious lives more bearable. People craved self-importance; they longed to be told they mattered as individuals, not just as part of a mass of people or some historical process. They needed the reassurance that while their life might be hard, bitter and thankless, some reward would be theirs after death. Happily for the governing class, a well-formed faith also kept people from seeking their recompense in the here and now, through riot, insurrection or revolution. — Iain M. Banks

While clearly Jesus was preaching the good news to all, he showed throughout his ministry the particular interest in the poor and the downtrodden that God has always had. Jesus, in his incarnation, "moved in" with the poor. He lived with, ate with, and associated with the socially ostracized (Matt 9:13). — Timothy Keller

Although America loved its tough guys, they weren't ready to vote for leaders who exhibited no compassion for the downtrodden and miserable, for on any given day they might constitute a majority. — David Baldacci

And what are you exactly, my friend? Their subordinate? Their employee? Or, I would suggest, their equal? That's what young Karl would certainly have said, and probably still does. Unless he's no longer alive.' Dodger gave Solomon and strange look and Solomon hastened to clarify. 'Mmmm, as I recall, if you go around telling people that they are downtrodden, you tend to make two separate enemies: the people who are doing the downtreading and have no intention of stopping, and the people who are downtrodden, but nevertheless
people being who they are
don't want to know. They can get quite nasty about it.' (205) — Terry Pratchett

Humankind devotes much of its collective energy to managing personal and institutional anxiety and dealing with unsuccessful efforts of its civilians to cope with the tides of shifting social and economic conditions. Every city corridor houses downtrodden citizens whom have given up on life, the dopers, smoke hounds, crack heads, and unrepentant drunkards whom spend their days pushing shopping carts and their nights sleeping in gutters. In marked contrast to these filthy and wretched souls whom inhabit the skid row of every city's streets, all animals display an admirable state of hygiene and a zest for life. Except for poor critters sentenced to live confined in a zoo and domestic animals held captives in deplorable harvesting pens, all animals live a carefree existence that is preferable to living off stress sandwiches of modern humankind. — Kilroy J. Oldster

It is quite exhilarating to speak about a God who has an incredible bias, a notorious bias in favor of the downtrodden. You look at Exodus and the Israelites' escape from a bottomless pit. God is not evenhanded. God is biased up to his eyebrows. — Desmond Tutu

Nihilism is a disease of the soul. It can never be completely cured, and there is always the possibility of relapse. There is always a chance for conversion
a chance for people to believe that there is hope for the future and a meaning to struggle ... Nihilism is not overcome by arguments or analyses; it is tamed by love and care. Any disease of the soul must be conquered by a turning of one's soul. This turning is done through one's own affirmation of one's worth
an affirmation fueled by the concern of others. A love ethic must be at the center of a politics of conversion.
A love ethic has nothing to do with sentimental feelings or tribal connections. Rather it is a last attempt at generating a sense of agency among a downtrodden people. — Cornel West

I believe in an India of pluralism and diversity, not of religious bigotry and caste politics. I believe in an India that is secure in itself and confident of its place in the world, an India that is a proud example of tolerance, freedom and hope for the downtrodden. — Shashi Tharoor

It was strange how it was always the poor who picked us up [hitchhiking] ... They dwelled beneath poverty lines and were undereducated, but they were ... more civilized than the finely bred..for there is no demographic that has a sharper instinct for empathy than the downtrodden. — Ken Ilgunas

But, you know, I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. What interests me is being a man. — Albert Camus

Number one comes freedom first for my people and equality. And this is what I plan to do after I'm through fighting - working with nothing but the people, the little people in the alleys: the downtrodden people, going out and helping them with my image. — Muhammad Ali

Gluck asserted that the poor were not simple downtrodden innocents as the Santa Claus Association had for years presented them. They were time bombs, ready to detonate as soon as conditions worsened. He suggested to Tumulty that the United States create a surveillance system that would "keep tabs" on the poor, and poor Germans in particular, without their knowledge - and that he should oversee the whole thing. — Alex Palmer

The claim that American women are downtrodden and unfairly treated is the fraud of the century. — Phyllis Schlafly

Obama and the Democrats are not focused on the moderates. They're focused on getting their base out, and they're trying to expand that base by forming sympathetic, empathetic alliances with the downtrodden, and there are a lot of downtrodden because Obama has made them that way via his policies. — Rush Limbaugh

The downtrodden are more religious than the satisfied. — Isaac Asimov

We really can't tell the difference between people who might seek power for some greater good and people who seek power just to aggrandize themselves. For example, all revolutionaries say that they want to uplift the downtrodden. — Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

Of course the lower classes have always felt downtrodden and aspired to a better life. But there is this theory that people respond to a class structure in England - there was a time when people knew who they were and knew whom they served and as long as management wasn't abusive, it was a good life for people. — Damian Lewis

I AM a little worn out, raddled, squashed, downtrodden, shot full of holes. Mortars have mortared me to bits. I am a little crumbly, decaying, yes, yes. I am sinking and drying up a little. I am a bit scalded and scorched, yes, yes. That's what it does to you. That's life. I am not old, not in the least, certainly I am not eighty, by no means, but I am not sixteen any more either. Quite definitely I am a bit old and used up. That's what it does to you. I am decaying a little, and I am crumbling, peeling a little. That's life. Am I a little bit over the hill? Hmm! Maybe. But that doesn't make me eighty, not by a long way. I am very tough, I can vouch for that. I am no longer young, but I am not old yet, definitely not. I am aging, fading a little, but that doesn't matter; I am not yet altogether old, though I am probably a little nervous and over the hill. It's natural that one should crumble a bit with the passage of time, but that doesn't matter. — Robert Walser

The more ardently I see humanity as a glorious abstract that must conform to my ideal of how the world should be, the harder it is for me to love the person on the other side of the picket line who is holding up progress. I can love the downtrodden in the abstract, but as I shivered under the bridge that night with Jorge, I realized that it's harder to love the illegal immigrant with the bottle-slashed face and the body unwashed for weeks, the workers gathering to eat day-old bread and chicken and rice out of foam containers, the crowd of thousands clamoring for bread and fish and healing, the unclean woman hoping to touch the hem of the Savior's robe. — Alisa Harris

For the women in California, they're just downtrodden because they're so gorgeous here. Every hot cheerleader comes to California to make it. The men don't want to get married, they're lazy lions. Matthew McConaughey is their poster boy so they can procreate and live on the beach in the trailer and have kids and have money and be hedonistic. — Patti Stanger

There is nothing your knife handlers can do in the way of rioting and demonstrating that will have any permanent effect as long as, in the extremity, there is an army equipped with kinetic, chemical, and neurological weapons that is willing to use them against your people. You can get all the downtrodden and even all the respectables on your side, but you must somehow win over the security forces and the Imperial army or at least seriously weaken their loyalty to the rulers. — Isaac Asimov

The only service to be done for our downtrodden sisters and brother, is to give them education to develop their individuality. We must give them ideas, alongside cultivating their living conditions. — Abhijit Naskar

Good governance is treating development as a mass movement in order to see that fruits of development reach the poor and the downtrodden. — Narendra Modi

God's Heart is especially tender toward the downtrodden and the defeated. He knows your name and He has seen every tear you have shed. — James Dobson

The Hulk is not basically violent, but only reacts violently when a threat is perceived. He has a certain passion for life. He is drawn towards kids and animals and the downtrodden. — Herb Trimpe

No, I was not going to work. I was an artist, a lover, a lover of women, of the oppressed and downtrodden, a warrior really. I should have been somewhere leading an armed revolution in the name of love and no, I was not going to work. — Michelle Tea

This budget is a Sanjeevani (new life) and an Arunoday (sunrise) for the last man in the line. This budget converts hopes and aspirations of the people into trust. It adds a new ray of hope for the poor and downtrodden sections of the society. — Narendra Modi

Was a book by Arthur Raistrick called Quakers in Science and Industry and I glanced through it for a few minutes, then carried it to a nearby chair and sat reading for about half an hour, so unexpectedly absorbed did I become. I hadn't realized it, but Quakers in the Darbys' day were a bullied and downtrodden minority in Britain. Excluded from conventional pursuits like politics and academia, they became big in industry and commerce, particularly, for some reason, in banking and the manufacture of chocolate. The Barclays and Lloyds banking families and the Cadburys, Frys, and Rowntrees of chocolate renown were all Quakers. They and many others made Britain a more dynamic and wealthy place entirely as a consequence of being treated shabbily by it. It had never occurred to me to be unkind to a Quaker, but if that's what it takes to get the country back on its feet again, I am prepared to consider it. - — Bill Bryson

For any ranked society, whether a chiefdom or a state, one thus has to ask, why do the commoners tolerate the transfer of the fruits of their hard labor to kleptocrats? This question raised by political theorists from Plato to Marx are raised anew by voters in every modern election. Kleptocracies with little public support run the risk of being overthrown, either by downtrodden commoners, or by upstart would be replacement kleptocrats seeking public support by promising a higher ratio of services rendered to fruits stolen. — Jared Diamond

The alleged music preached of the wrongs democracy had perpetrated on the people and how to protest against the causes of their pain, which would be, according to the fascist propagandists, the police, the military, the rich and the current American government. His ballads were to call for youth and the downtrodden to unite and fight against poverty, injustice and social ills - by destroying the American way of life. Radio — Louis L'Amour

When I was growing up there, North Gulfport was referred to as 'Little Vietnam' because of the perception of crime and depravity within its borders - as if its denizens were simply a congregation of the downtrodden. — Natasha Trethewey

And each and every one, it seems, falls to stagnation, and in that stagnation evil men rise, through greed or lust for power. Like canker buds, they find their way in any government, slipping through seams in the well-intended laws, coaxing the codes to their advantage, finding their treasures and securing their well-being at the expense of all others, and ever blaming the helpless, who have no voice and no recourse. To the laborers they cry, "Beware the leech!" and the leech is the infirm, the elderly, the downtrodden. So do they deflect and distort reality itself to secure their wares, and yet, they are never secure, for this is the truest rhyme of history, that when the theft is complete, so will the whole collapse, and in that collapse will fall the downtrodden and the nobility alike. — R.A. Salvatore

Greeks have always been very confident, very strong people. That is - that is our real, I guess, benefit, is that we are independent thinkers. We will always get up on our feet. We - we sometimes act the best when we are downtrodden. — Pavlos, Crown Prince Of Greece

President Obama is a utopian at heart. He wants to improve the lives of the downtrodden, which is a good thing. But, he doesn't understand that damaging the free marketplace in pursuit of 'social justice' will eventually harm those whom he wants to help. The nation's crushing debt is a tsunami brewing off shore. — Bill O'Reilly

After graduation, due to special circumstances and perhaps also to my character, I began to travel throughout America, and I became acquainted with all of it. Except for Haiti and Santo Domingo, I have visited, to some extent, all the other Latin American countries. Because of the circumstances in which I traveled, first as a student and later as a doctor, I came into close contact with poverty, hunger and disease; with the inability to treat a child because of lack of money; with the stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment, to the point that a father can accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident, as occurs often in the downtrodden classes of our American homeland. And I began to realize at that time that there were things that were almost as important to me as becoming famous for making a significant contribution to medical science: I wanted to help those people. — Ernesto Che Guevara

Following Christ, the Church seeks the truth, which is not always the same as the majority opinion. She listens to conscience and not to power, and in this way she defends the poor and the downtrodden. — Pope John Paul II

We can wait for the system to collapse of its own accord, for the rage of the downtrodden and dispossessed to build, for chaos of some sort to expose and destroy it. But implosion might take a long time. And when it happens, we may find ourselves even more powerless than we are now. They - the hardcore, racist, undereducated, fundamentalist Christian, anit-civil liberties Right - are preparing to step into the breach, to seize power. They can't wait to unleash their venomous hatred on the city-dwelling commie hipster fags they despise. They are armed. They recognize that the system is doomed. They've seen this coming. They're organized and willing to merge their disparate brands of conservatism under a common leadership. Most importantly, they get it. They don't need to be convinced that everything is in play. They're putting it in play. — Ted Rall

Thais believed that in defeat the downtrodden, courageous soul would rise with the fiercest determination for victory. That is when the true spirit of warriors shined through and soared. A new day would dawn and with it a renewed hope would rise above the blood and the ash, strengthening even the weakest and igniting a birth of revolution. — Madison Thorne Grey

One of life's gifts is that each of us, no matter how tired and downtrodden, finds reasons for thankfulness: for the crops carried in from the fields and the grapes from the vineyard. — J. Robert Moskin

How to describe what humans look like to us! I've tried to describe it a little, when I spoke of Nicki's beauty the night before as a mixture of movement and color. But you can't imagine what it's like for us to look on living flesh. There are those billions of colors and tiny configurations of movement, yes, that make up a living creature on whom we concentrate. But the radiance mingles totally with the carnal scent. Beautiful, that's what any human being is to us, if we stop to consider it, even the old and the diseased, the downtrodden that one doesn't really "see" in the street. They are all like that, like flowers ever in the process of opening, butterflies ever unfolding out of the cocoon. Well, — Anne Rice

You all know that even when women have full rights, they still remain fatally downtrodden because all housework is left to them. In most cases housework is the most unproductive, the most barbarous and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman. — Vladimir Lenin

Money, power, love, sex (until they get married), adulation, children, and control. Of these, children cause the most trouble. Women also want equal rights and equal pay for equal work, and I agree with them 100%. Though on some days it is hard to figure out how a species that controls 97% of the money and all the pussy can be downtrodden. — Larry L. King

I studied history at university. My mutinous discontent recalls something I read there on the subject of revolutions. They do not happen, it was argued, when the oppressed class is being maximally ground down by misery, but, rather, when conditions improve. It is the slight relief of pressure which gives the downtrodden the chance to lift their heads out of the slime, to look about them. and become cognisant of the true circumstances of their lives. — Anna Lyndsey

He felt ugly, loathsome, unfit to live, existing from moment to moment like an addict. He gravitated to the crippled, the diseased, the bohemian, and the downtrodden when he wanted an evening of conversation, just a little cerebral companionship. — Anne Rice

Life does not require us to be consistent, cruel, patient, helpful, angry, rational, thoughtless, loving, rash, open-minded, neurotic, careful, rigid, tolerant, wasteful, rich, downtrodden, gentle, sick, considerate, funny, stupid, healthy, greedy, beautiful, lazy, responsive, foolish, sharing, pressured, intimate, hedonistic, industrious, manipulative, insightful, capricious, wise, selfish, kind or sacrificed. Life does, however, require us to live with the consequences of our choices. — Richard Bach

If there is inequality in nature, still there must be equal chance for all - or if greater for some and for some less - the weaker should be given more chance than the strong. In other words, a Brahmin is not so much in need of education as a Chandala. If the son of a Brahmin needs one teacher, that of a Chandala needs ten. For greater help must be given to him whom nature has not endowed with an acute intellect from birth. It is a madman who carries coals to Newcastle. The poor, the downtrodden, the ignorant, let these be your God. — Swami Vivekananda

It is about being born downtrodden and staying that way. Hard work makes no difference, he is saying. My lot, the lots of those around me, were cast the moment we were born into the gutter to parents who never managed to step outside the gutter themselves. — Cathy Marie Buchanan

If you wanted to control the nation's manufacturing, commerce, finance, transportation and natural resources, you would need only to control the apex, the power pinnacle, of an all-powerful SOCIALIST government. Then you would have a monopoly and could squeeze out all your competitors. If you wanted a national monopoly, you must control a national socialist government. If you want a worldwide monopoly, you must control a world socialist government. That is what the game is all about. "Communism" is not a movement of the downtrodden masses but is a movement created, manipulated and used by power-seeking billionaires in order to gain control over the world ... — Gary Allen

But, if you think that by hanging us, you can stamp out the labor movement - the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil and live in want and misery - the wage slaves - expect salvation - if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread upon a spark, but there, and there, and behind you and in front of you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out. — August Spies

When you feel discouraged or simply lazy, as is bound to happen sometimes, remember the millions of people in the world who have not had your privilege. Remember the poor and obscure lives of those countless millions who suffer from every sort of deprivation and frequently find themselves the unwilling victim of wars, and a variety of cruelties, perpetuated by man on man. Is it not significant that the first bid for self realization, among the poor and downtrodden, is to assert their right to education? — Jehan Sadat

It is for you this song
You, the stranger who, without fuss,
Though downtrodden yourself still smiled at me,
When the policemen took me off.

You who didn't join the applause when
The upper crust women and men
All the people with good intentions
Laughed to see me being led away.

It was merely a touch of honey
But it warmed my body through
And in my soul it burns on still
As the bright sun would do...

You, the stranger, when you will die
When the mortician bears you off
May he take you across the sky,
To the Father Eternal. — Georges Brassens

Most of us would agree that the important thing about Jesus is not his supposed miraculous birth or the claim that he was resurrected from death, but rather how he lived. The power of his love, the penetrating simplicity of his teachings, and the force of his example of service on behalf of the disenfranchised and downtrodden are what is crucial. — Forrest Church

Love of God thus becomes the dominant passion of life; like every other worth-while love, it demands and inspires sacrifice. But love of God and man, as an ideal, has lately been replaced by the new ideal of tolerance which inspires no sacrifice. Why should any human being in the world be merely tolerated? What man has ever made a sacrifice in the name of tolerance? It leads men, instead, to express their own egotism in a book or a lecture that patronizes the downtrodden group. One of the cruelest things that can happen to a human being is to be tolerated. Never once did Our Lord say, "Tolerate your enemies!" But He did say, "Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you" (Matt. 5:44). Such love can be achieved only if we deliberately curb our fallen nature's animosities. — Fulton J. Sheen

Hundreds of thousands and millions of wage slaves of capital and peasants downtrodden by the serf-owners are going to the slaughter for the dynastic interests of a handful of crowned brigands, for the profits of the bourgeoisie in its drive to plunder foreign lands. — Vladimir Lenin

I come from a long line of downtrodden women who marry alcoholics. All the way back to my Lenni Lanape great-great-great-(lots of greats) grandmother, Scarlet Bird, a red-haired New Jersey Indian who married William Penn. I know this to be true because of the red highlights in my hair, and because, if you ever see the statue of William Penn in Philadelphia, the one that dictates the height of all the buildings in its perimeter, you will notice, if you look at him from behind, that he and I have the exact same rear end. — Wendy Wunder

The US government is usually on the wrong side against the poor and downtrodden, because the wrong side is the right side, given the class interests upon which the [US] policy is fixed. — Michael Parenti