Top 705 Oppressed Quotes & Sayings

It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power - power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate.

Ironically, when I've asked my straight friends to join me in hanging a rainbow flag, they answer, 'But someone might think we're gay,' not realizing that is exactly the point. To be mistaken for the oppressed is to momentarily become the oppressed.

Oppressed persons, oppressed cultures, tend to be more political, obviously, as are those with a rage for justice, or the crazy messianic desire.

The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.

To say that poverty explains terror is to slander those caught in poverty who choose to lead worthy lives. [Terrorists] are not the oppressed, but they are the parasites of the oppressed.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter which group is most oppressed or whether they are identically oppressed, what matters is that no group be oppressed.

The object of a dialogical-liberterian action is not to 'dislodge' the oppressed from a mythological reality in order to 'bind' them to another reality. On the contrary, the object of dialogical action is to make it possible for the oppressed, by perceiving their adhesion, to opt to transform an unjust reality." "In order for the oppressed to unite they must first cut the umbilical cord of magic and myth which binds them to the world of oppression; the unity which links them to each other must be of a different nature.

When men are oppressed, it's a tragedy. When women are oppressed, it's tradition.

When does a session of The Theatre of the Oppressed end? Never - since the objective is not to close a cycle, to generate a catharsis, or to end a development. On the contrary, its objective is to encourage autonomous activity, to set a process in motion, to stimulate transformative creativity, to change spectators into protagonists. And it is precisely for these reasons that the Theatre of the Oppressed should be the initiator of changes the culmination of which is not the aesthetic phenomenon but real life.

How can the oppressed, as divided, unauthentic beings, participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation? Only as they discover themselves to be 'hosts' of the oppressor can they contribute to the midwifery of their liberating pedagogy. As long as they live in the duality in which to be is to be like and to be like is to be like the oppressor, this contribution is impossible. The pedagogy of the oppressed is an instrument for their critical discovery that both they and their oppressors are manifestations of dehumanization.

I want my children - I want Malia and Sasha - to understand that they've got responsibilities beyond just what they themselves have done. That they have a responsibility to the larger community and the larger nation, that they should be sensitive to and extra thoughtful about the plight of people who have been oppressed in the past, are oppressed currently.

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.

Till people find themselves greatly abused and oppressed by their governors, they are not apt to complain; and whenever they do, in fact, find themselves thus abused and oppressed, they must be stupid not to complain

Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.

The fortunes of the African revolution are closely linked with the world-wide struggle against imperialism. It does not matter where the battle erupts, be it in Africa, Asia or Latin America, the master-mind and master-hand at work are the same. The oppressed and exploited people are striving for their freedom against exploitation and suppression. Ghana must not, Ghana cannot be neutral in the struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor.

White women are themselves oppressed and that they would therefore be able to align themselves with other oppressed people.

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.

Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population and the colonization by the oppressor's own nationals.

But nonviolence was never for the oppressor; it was for the oppressed.

American liberty is being destroyed by Marxist doctrines that explain society in terms of hegemonic and oppressed groups - whether classes, races or genders - fighting for suzerainty. In these societies spun out of Marxist theorizing, good will does not exist, only the material interests of warring groups. Morality resides in the oppressed, but if the oppressed succeed in becoming hegemonic, their claim to moral supremacy evaporates.

A status not freely chosen or entered into by an individual or a group is necessarily one of oppression and the oppressed are by their nature (i.e., oppressed) forever in ferment and agitation against their condition and what they understand to be their oppressors. If not by overt rebellion or revolution, then in the thousand and one ways they will devise with and without consciousness to alter their condition

Being oppressed means the absence of choices

Women are the only 'oppressed' group that is able to buy most of the $10 billion worth of cosmetics each year; the only oppressed group that spends more on high fashion, brand-name clothing than its oppressors; the only oppressed group that watches more TV.

Obviously the most oppressed of any oppressed group will be its women

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

Women are oppressed in the east, in the west, in the south, in the north. Women are oppressed inside, outside home, a woman is oppressed in religion, she is oppressed outside religion.

The racism is so profound and the recognition - the kind of deep recognition that you have to humiliate. It's not about to killing or torture. It's to humiliate. So the oppressed feel degraded. And both the oppressed understand and the oppressors understand. It's constant.

Those who call for censorship in the name of the oppressed ought to recognize it is never the oppressed who determine the bounds of censorship.

It is no merit in the sorrowful that they weep, or to the oppressed and smothering that they gasp and struggle, not to me, that I must speak for the oppressed - who cannot speak for themselves.

America is built on the labors of the oppressed.

I find it really unique that the black community, who has been oppressed and is still oppressed, can find a way to oppress themselves, and ourselves, within it.

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).

I once wrote that Black Americans are involved in an intriguing experiment to see if an oppressed minority can continue to march forward if there is not a strong and vibrant left-wing and radical movement. That's not an experiment I would recommend, although the story is still unfolding and we will see how it unfolds, but they are not the sort of conditions in which an oppressed minority should have to struggle.

We will no longer be oppressed by the fascism called Christianity. We will no longer be oppressed by the mentality of the police state.

This book will present some aspects of what the writer has termed the pedagogy of the oppressed, a pedagogy which must be forged with, not for, the oppressed (whether individuals or peoples) in the incessant struggle to regain their humanity.

The ignorance of the oppressed is strength for the oppressor.

People say, 'You should let your hair out; you shouldn't be oppressed - you're not in Malaysia anymore. You should show your curves and be proud of it.' But I am proud - it's my choice to cover up my body. I'm not oppressed - I'm free.

If you have a more oppressed Internet, you have a more oppressed society.

God says, "Come out of her my people, that you be not partakers of her sins and her plagues, for her sins have reached unto heaven." We don't need the Democratic Party. We don't need the Republican Party. We can get a little from both of them, but Elijah Muhammad said we need to form our own political machine.! A machine that works for the oppressed: The oppressed Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, White.

Transformation is only valid if it is carried out with the people, not for them. Liberation is like a childbirth, and a painful one. The person who emerges is a new person: no longer either oppressor or oppressed, but a person in the process of achieving freedom. It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors.

God is on the side of the oppressed.

To forgive an oppressor is oppression upon the oppressed.

Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.

Nobody in this country goes around saying: 'I'm feeling very oppressed by the E.U.' Well, one or two people do, but they're a bit odd. Ultimately, if they're getting oppressed by the E.U., they're going to start to feel oppressed by something else and just switch to a new subject of oppression.

I do not like the way oppressed Filipinos are being treated now. They are oppressed and have no one to turn to.

In North Korea, people who are actually oppressed don't even know they're oppressed.

What happens with identity politics sometimes is there's a competition among the oppressed: You're more oppressed than me and if not, then unfortunately you may not receive as much attention. What we need to do is make sure we're focusing on what our core American values are, and ensure that everyone feels as though we are in this together.

Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.

Dare I speak ,to oppressed and opressor in the same voice? Dare I speak to you in a language that will move beyond the boundaries of domination- a language, that will not bind you, fence you in, or hold you? Language is also a place of struggle. The oppressed struggle in language to recover ourselves, to reconcile, to reunite, to renew. Our words are not without meaning, they are an action, a resistance. Language is also a place of struggle.

With the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun. Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence? How could they be the sponsors of something objective whose objective inauguration called forth their existence as oppressed? There would be no oppressed had there been no prior of violence to establish their subjugation.

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.

Till people find themselves greatly abused and oppressed by their governors, they are not apt to complain; and whenever they do, in fact, find themselves thus abused and oppressed, they must be stupid not to complain.

Critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action, must be carried on with the oppressed at whatever the stage of their struggle for liberation. The content of that dialogue can and should vary in accordance with historical conditions and the level at which the oppressed perceive reality.

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.

One of our people in the Native community said the difference between white people and Indians is that Indian people know they are oppressed but don’t feel powerless. White people don’t feel oppressed, but feel powerless. Deconstruct that disempowerment. Part of the mythology that they’ve been teaching you is that you have no power. Power is not brute force and money; power is in your spirit. Power is in your soul. It is what your ancestors, your old people gave you. Power is in the earth; it is in your relationship to the earth.

My philosophy is such that I am not going to vote against the oppressed. I have been oppressed, and so I am always going to have avote for the oppressed, regardless of whether that oppressed is black or white or yellow or the people of the Middle East, or what. I have that feeling.

I'm trying to make people understand: yes, women are oppressed in 'The Handmaid's Tale.' But the men are also oppressed, too. It's just a very scary world for anyone.

Jesus' life and words are a challenge at the same time that they are Good News. They are a challenge to those of us who are poor and oppressed. By His life He is calling us to give ourselves to others, to sacrifice for those who suffer, to share our lives with our brothers and sisters who are also oppressed. He is calling us to "hunger and thirst after justice" in the same way that we hunger and thirst after food and water: that is, by putting our yearning into practice.

God wants to set the oppressed free from being oppressed and the oppressors free from oppressing.

Oppressed cultures often envy those which are not, or oppressed individuals do, and sometimes those which - and who - are not envy those which - who - are.