#oppressive

Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive. ↗

— Roland Barthes

#classification #code #forget #language #legislation

Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic. ↗

— James Madison

#generally #oppressive #shackles #unjust

Life ceases to be so oppressive: we are free to give our own lives meaning and purpose, free to redeem our suffering by making something of it. ↗

— Walter Kaufmann

#free #give #life #lives #making

When a system of oppression has become institutionalized it is unnecessary for individuals to be oppressive. ↗

— Florynce R. Kennedy

#individuals #institutionalized #oppression #oppressive #system

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

#checked #devised #efficiently #government #instead

The ability of Americans to toss off oppressive characters is the most rewarding aspect, to me, of U.S. history. ↗

— Norman Corwin

#aspect #characters #history #me #most

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

A stab had clearly once been made at de-uglifying these public spaces by painting a corridor a jaunty yellow. This was because, it turned out, babies come here to have their brains tested and someone thought the yellow might calm them. But I couldn’t see how. Such was the oppressive ugliness of this building it would have been like sticking a red nose on a cadaver and calling it Ronald McDonald. ↗

— Jon Ronson

#buildings #cadaver #humor #oppression #oppressive

When they talk about family values, it's in a repressive way, as if our American tradition were only the Puritan tradition or the 19th century oppressive tradition. The Christian tradition. ↗

— James Hillman

#about #american #american tradition #century #christian

In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is complicated. ↗

— Ryszard Kapuscinski

#between #citizens #complicated #experience #fabric