#oppress

Wir sind das Volk!" Dieser Satz hat uns gelehrt, dass wir, wenn wir unserer Sehnsucht glauben und ihr vertrauen, die Angst verlieren können. Eine Angst, die willfährige Dienerin jeder Art von nicht legitimierter Herrschaft ist, die uns ohnmächtig macht, die uns bindet. In dem Augenblick aber, in dem wir unsere Angst als Angst benennen und Anpassung und Angst als Geschwisterkinder erkennen, sind wir möglicherweise bereit zu erproben: Können wir auch ohne sie leben? In genau diesem Augenblick wachsen uns jene Kräfte zu, die eine ganze Gesellschaft verändern können. ↗

— Joachim Gauck

#civil-rights #courage #democracy #dictatorship #empowerment

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. ↗

— Robert F. Kennedy

#influence #justice #kindness #make-a-difference #oppression

To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty. ↗

— Maximilien Robespierre

#cruelty #forgive #humanity #oppressors #punish

The truth is that every intelligent man, as you know, dreams of being a gangster and of ruling over society by force alone. As it is not so easy as the detective novels might lead one to believe, one generally relies on politics and joins the cruelest party.What does it matter, after all, if by humiliating one's mind one succeeds in dominating every one? I discovered in myself sweet dreams of oppression. ↗

— Albert Camus

#oppression #dreams

Do remember, though, that sometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like. ↗

— Veronica Roth

#oppression

سأظل واقفًا مع الطرف الذي يدين القمع وقتل المدنيين وضربهم وإهانة النساء حتى ولو وقف الكون كله في الطرف الذي يدين الضحايا ويتملق الجلادين ↗

— بلال فضل

#oppression #solidarity #oppression

Chivalry!---why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection---the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant ---Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword. ↗

— Walter Scott

#oppression

We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate. ↗

— Lydia Maria Francis Child

#imperialism #injustice #oppression #racism #rationalization

Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future. ↗

— Paulo Freire

#oppression #oppression

It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term “feminism,” to focus on the fact that to be “feminist” in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression. ↗

— Bell Hooks

#oppression