Oppressive Quotes
More Oppressive Quotes
In 1990 [Mother Teresa] made a trip to Albania, then the most oppressive of the Balkan Stalinist states, and laid a wreath on the grave of the dictator Enver Hoxha as well as on the irredentist monument to "Mother Albania". She was herself of Albanian descent (born in Skopje, Macedonia), but many Albanians were shocked by her embrace of Hoxha's widow and her silence on human rights.
enver hoxha— Christopher Hitchens, Saint to the rich: There was less -- and more -- to Mother Teresa than met the eye., Salon, Sept. 5, 1997
I have always disliked being a man. The whole idea of manhood in America is pitiful, in my opinion. This version of masculinity is a little like having to wear an ill-fitting coat for one's entire life (by contrast, I imagine femininity to be an oppressive sense of nakedness).
paul theroux— "Being a Man" (1983), from Sunrise with Seamonsters: Travels and Discoveries, 1964-84 (Houghton Mifflin, 1986, ISBN 0-395-41501-2, 384 pages), p. 309
Anarchy had been here all the nineteenth century, with its sinister offspring Nihilism , and it is a simple truth that the human mind can face better the most oppressive government , the most rigid restrictions, than the awful prospect of a lawless, frontierless world . Freedom is a dangerous intoxicant and very few people can tolerate it in any quantity; it brings out the old raiding, oppressing, murderous instincts; the rage for revenge, for power , the lust for bloodshed.
— Katherine Anne Porter, in The Never-Ending Wrong (1977)
The Government of the absolute majority, instead of the Government of the people, isbut the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised.
— 1833 Speech, US Senate,15 Feb.
We live in oppressive times.We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder 'censorship', we call it 'concern for commercial viability'.
— 1986 Writing in Restaurants,'Radio Drama'.
The Government of the absolute majority instead of the Government of the people is but the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised.
john c. calhoun— Speech to the U.S. Senate (15 February 1833).
Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon... I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.
oriana fallaci— As quoted in "The Agitator: Oriana Fallaci directs her fury toward Islam" by Margaret Talbot, in The New Yorker (5 June 2006)
Is the Church fulfilling a purely religious role when by its silence or friendly relationships it lends legitimacy to dictatorial and oppressive government?
gustavo gutierrez— Chapter Five, Crisis Of the Distinction Of Planes Model, p. 40
In any event, any person from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale should not have, in any thinking society, any civil rights of any kind, because by abusing those rights he brings into being arduous and strenuous laws which are oppressive to those who need no such restraints.
l. ron hubbard— The "Tone Scale" is Scientology's measure of mental and spiritual health; p. 145
Why, since people must outnumber the minority that comprises the State and its oppressive forces, have they submitted so meekly to it?
— The Floodgates of Anarchy p. 15
In so far as nationalism inculcates in us a sense of national and social justice which call upon us to fight any system that is oppressive or tyrannical both in our country and the world, there I am completely with nationalism. I hate Imperialism whether British or Japanese or Burmese.
aung san— Address to a meeting of the Anglo-Burman Council at the City Hall, Rangoon (8 December, 1946)
Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.
Herbert Spencer— On Manners and Fashion.
Order it wrong and choice is oppressive; order it right and it’s liberating.
chris anderson— Ch. 10, p. 174
As the shores of Ithaca gradually Faded away behind him And he sailed swiftly westward Toward Iberia and the Pillars of Hercules, Far from every Achaean sea, He felt he was alive once more, Freed from the oppressive bonds Of familiar, domestic things. And his adventurous heart rejoiced Coldly, devoid of love.
constantine p. cavafy— Second Odyssey, as translated by Walter Kaiser
"This work deals with a very obvious truth: just as the oppressor, in order to oppress, needs a theory of oppressive action, so the oppressed, in order to become free, also need a theory of action." "Only in the encounter of the people with the revolutionary leaders--in their communion, in their praxis--can this theory be built."
paulo freire— Chapter 4, "Cultural Synthesis"
The oppressive weight of disaster and tragedy in our lives does not arise from a high percentage of evil among the summed total of all acts, but from the extraordinary power of exceedingly rare incidents of depravity to inflict catastrophic damage, especially in our technological age when airplanes can become powerful bombs. (An even more evil man, armed only with a longbow, could not have wreaked such havoc at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.)
stephen jay gould— "The Good People of Halifax", p. 390 (originally appeared in The Globe and Mail, 2001-09-20)
If people with the very best intentions carry on prosecutions that are oppressive, the end may not always perhaps sanctify the means.
kenyon, lloyd, 1st baron kenyon— Williams' Case (1797), 26 How. St. Tr. 704.
[Feminism] is alienating women from their own bodies … because they don’t understand that they have something that men want , okay? So they’re encouraged to interpret all male lust as oppressive and victimizing and negative, instead of seeing that it is up to them to husband this flame. They have a flame, and it’s enormously powerful…
camille paglia— p. 259 ("No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality")
Men have sacrificed and crippled themselves physically and emotionally to feed, house, and protect women and children. None of their pain or achievement is registered in feminist rhetoric, which portrays men as oppressive and callous exploiters.
camille paglia— Reviewing Warren Farrell's The Myth of Male Power, p. 392
Capitalism has brought about the emancipation of collective humanity with respect to nature. But this collective humanity has itself taken on with respect to the individual the oppressive function formerly exercised by nature.
Simone Weil— Gravity and Grace (1972), p. 140
If people with the very best intentions carry on prosecutions that are oppressive, the end may not always perhaps sanctify the means.
— Lord Kenyon, Williams' Case (1797), 26 How. St. Tr. 704.
The last right we shall mention regards the freedom of the press. The importance of this consists, besides the advancement of truth, science, morality, and arts in general, in its diffusion of liberal sentiments on the administration of Government, its ready communication of thoughts between subjects, and its consequential promotion of union among them whereby oppressive officers are shamed or intimidated into more honourable and just modes of conducting affairs.
— Letter sent by the Continental Congress (October 26, 1774) to the Inhabitants of Quebec. Source: Journal of the Continental Congress, 1904 ed., vol. I, pp. 104, 108.
...the Islamic Revolution of Iran, was anything but a progressive movement. This was a conscious assault on the 2500 year old Persian Empire and the progressive Iranian people in the twentieth century. This untimely revolution outrageously installed the most oppressive theocratic Islamic system known to the history of mankind. With that, it renewed an era of Islamic terrorism and the revival of its never-ending passion for world domination.
— Iran: It’s Time for a Progressive Revolution, 01 Jul, 2007
Now, in deciding whether discovery ought to be given, we must first consider whether it will help the plaintiff at the trial. If it will not, but will only be of use if the plaintiff obtains a decree, then ... we consider whether it is fair that the defendant should be obliged to give it at this stage of the proceedings, or whether to compel him to give it would be oppressive.
— Jessel, M.R., Parker v. Wells (1881), L. R. 18 C. D. 483.
The move towards "demythologization," for example, is largely motivated by the wish to avoid any clash between Christianity and scientific ideas. If such a clash occurs, then science is certainly right and Christianity wrong. Pursue this investigation further and you will see that science has now become as oppressive as the ideologies it had once to fight.
— Paul Karl Feyerabend (1975) How To Defend Society Against Science
In so far as nationalism inculcates in us a sense of national and social justice which call upon us to fight any system that is oppressive or tyrannical both in our country and the world, there I am completely with nationalism. I hate Imperialism whether British or Japanese or Burmese.
— Aung San, Address to a meeting of the Anglo-Burman Council at the City Hall, Rangoon (8 December 1946)
Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. ~ Abraham Lincoln
— used 15 February 2008, proposed by Jeff Q
Anarchism … The theory or doctrine that all forms of government are oppressive and undesirable and should be abolished … Rejection of all forms of coercive control and authority.
— The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth edition (2000)
The theory or doctrine that all forms of government are oppressive and undesirable and should be abolished … Rejection of all forms of coercive control and authority.
— "Anarchism", in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth edition (2000)
