#oppress

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. ↗

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

#freedom #given #must #never #oppressed

I want to read so I can read the Koran read the signs in the street know the number of the bus I'm supposed to take when I one day leave this house. ↗

— Eve Ensler

#illiteracy #oppression #women #women-s-rights #life

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

#annabelle-fancher #existence #helping #justice #life

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. ↗

— Frederick Douglass

#oppression

If we are going to save this country, if we are going to reestablish that belief in God, it's up to us. If we don't do it, who will? ↗

— Bob Riley

#away #budding #democracies #due #half

Das war ein Vorspiel nur; dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen." (Almansor) ↗

— Heinrich Heine

#books #bücherverbrennung #freedom-of-thought #human-rights #meinungsfreiheit

A habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression. ↗

— Joel Barlow

#destroys #discerning #disuse #forces #habitual

BLOODY LIPS The bloody wound Of the gladiator Gurgles out life's end. The cries of acclimations from the stands Fill the sky with raging tigers. Waving their arms about to incite the masses The aging notables add an air of dignity to the arena. Making their separate entries they K N E E L over the still-warm corpses Of the young. Their withered lips they pose Upon the fresh flowing wounds And, to prolong their lives – so they believe, Suck, ravenously suck out the blood, blood, blood. Fresh blood from the sun Flowing into filthy veins As into sewage pipes, And thus the Heart of the Nation is abandoned. ↗

— Visar Zhiti

#bloodsport #gladiators #oppression #tyranny #vampire

I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision... is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive. ↗

— Barbara Deming

#choice #concept #enable #familiar #hold

The severest trial of oppression is the constant outrage which one suffers at the thought of the oppressor. What Jesus discovered was how to avoid the inner devastations. His technique was to practice the opposite emotion... [a man] may not get his freedom or possessions back, but he's less miserable. It's a difficult lesson. ↗

— B.F. Skinner

#oppression #freedom