A Quote by Joan D. Chittister
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.
Related Quotes
But almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or sub oppressors. The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradiction of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them to be men is to be oppressors
I cannot make myself believe that God wanted me to hate. I'm tired of violence, I've seen too much of it. I've seen such hate on the faces of too many sheriffs in the South. And I'm not going to let my oppressor dictate to me what method I must use. Our oppressors have used violence. Our oppressors have used hatred. Our oppressors have used rifles and guns. I'm not going to stoop down to their level. I want to rise to a higher level. We have a power that can't be found in Molotov cocktails.
Every civilization carries the seeds of its own destruction, and the same cycle shows in them all. The Republic is born, flourishes, decays into plutocracy, and is captured by the shoemaker whom the mercenaries and millionaires make into a king. The people invent their oppressors, and the oppressors serve the function for which they are invented.
In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both
By the end of the 50s, everything began to collapse and, little by little, I lost all of my work. I lost Rex, the Wonder Dog and all the westerns.
Being a victim of oppression in the United States is not enough to make you revolutionary, just as dropping out of your mother's womb is not enough to make you human. People who are full of hate and anger against their oppressors or who only see Us versus Them can make a rebellion but not a revolution. The oppressed internalize the values of the oppressor. Therefore, any group that achieves power, no matter how oppressed, is not going to act differently from their oppressors as long as they have not confronted the values that they have internalized and consciously adopted different values.
Black people are the only ones told to love our oppressors. I hate that. We've been loving our oppressors for a long time, and nothing has changed - that love has to be reciprocated.
The wonder is that so many OCDs manage to live productive lives, just the same. They work, they eat (often not enough or too much, it's true), they go to the movies, they make love to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their wives and husbands... and all the time those birds are there, clinging to them and pecking away little bits of flesh.
Kids are soft these days, period, end of the story in every respect. People coddle them too much. I'm sick of that; it's irresponsible parenting. Taking care of them is one thing, but turning little boys into little girls because you're coddling them so much, kids need to have experiences on their own.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch tv too much. We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years.
Too much, too little, too late, to ever try again. Too much, too little, too late, let's end it being friends.
a little misgiving in the beginning of things, means much regret in the end of them.
Sometimes when you write something, you have that day when you start writing and you feel really good, and you start changing it. At the end, it lost the essence. It lost the first idea, the energy that it had, it's going down after every change. And at the end it's something soft and too much rewritten or too much rebuilt that doesn't have the same energy as the beginning. So, I like the first takes because of that, you know. It has that first energy that sometimes it's difficult to recreate.
Action must be taken at once; there is no time to be lost; we shall yet see the oppressors' yoke broken and the fragments scattered on the ground.
I think people get a little resentful when they were there at the beginning, when they supported you when you played in front of nobody - which we still do. They get a little resentful when they have to share with new people. That's why I want to really look out for the people who've been with us from the beginning.
Three things too much, and three too little are pernicious to man; to speak much, and know little; to spend much, and have little; to presume much, and be worth little.
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