Oppressive quotes:

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Oppressive bastards, think they own the place. I told them that karma's going to kick their asses.... -- Laurie Halse Anderson
Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. -- Toni Morrison
An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger. -- Confucius
The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought. -- Peter Ustinov
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government. -- Edmund Burke
We need to work on the world so it will not be so oppressive. -- James Hillman
Every tax or rate, forcibly taken from an unwilling person, is immoral and oppressive. -- Auberon Herbert
We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels. -- Henry A. Wallace
When a system of oppression has become institutionalized it is unnecessary for individuals to be oppressive. -- Florynce Kennedy
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. -- Thomas Jefferson
Those religions that are oppressive to women are also against democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression. -- Taslima Nasrin
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. -- C. S. Lewis
Big and oppressive government has long been the enemy of freedom, something black Americans know all too well. -- Rand Paul
I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born. -- Oriana Fallaci
Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror. -- Herbert Spencer
People with lots of doubts sometimes find life more oppressive and exhausting than others, but they're more energetic - they aren't robots. -- Antonio Tabucchi
It seems that the only gun violence some leftists approve of is gun violence aimed at cops and other groups they see as oppressive or racist. -- Gary Bauer
I think the adverb is a much-maligned part of speech. It's always accused of being oppressive, even tyrannical, when in fact it's so supple and sly. -- Eleanor Catton
We live in a complicated, oppressive world with enormous cities and vast populations, and I try to contribute by making it more light and open and calm. -- Moshe Safdie
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
Women are the victims of this patriarchal culture, but they are also its carriers. Let us keep in mind that every oppressive man was raised in the confines of his mother's home. -- Shirin Ebadi
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
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
The history of American women is about the fight for freedom, but it's less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women's role that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders. -- Gail Collins
Even in the 1950s, President Eisenhower was concerned about what he called a campaign of hatred of the U.S. in the Arab world, because of the perception on the Arab street that it supported harsh and oppressive regimes to take their oil. -- Noam Chomsky
I grew up in Cuba under a strong, military, oppressive dictatorship. So as a teenager, I found myself involved in a revolution. I remember during that time, a young, charismatic leader rose up, talking about hope and change. His name was Fidel Castro. -- Rafael Cruz
August used to be a sad month for me. As the days went on, the thought of school starting weighed heavily upon my young frame. That, coupled with the oppressive heat and humidity of my native Washington, D.C., only seemed to heighten the misery. -- Henry Rollins
In all these years, I've always tried to emphasize and to promote the need to combat the Mafia. Because it is a cancer which is oppressive and which stifles everybody's freedom and reduces the possibility for the areas in which it's present to prosper and to develop. -- Sergio Mattarella
It is most oppressive to be an aunt. -- Christina Stead
Our enormous surplus revenues are illogical and oppressive. -- John Griffin Carlisle
Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic. -- James Madison
Keeping people neurotic and depressed and ignorant and self-doubting is oppressive. -- Susie Bright
One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one. -- James Madison
Who do you think is more difficult to face: oppressive governments, or oppressive societies? -- Manal al-Sharif
The best jihad is to speak a word of justice to an oppressive ruler. -- Muhammad
People who speak up for freedom in regimes that are oppressive are often a threat. -- Rex W. Tillerson
I actually find novels that are determined to be funny at every turn quite oppressive. -- Ian Mcewan
We must not reject all sexual contact between adults and young people as inherently oppressive. -- Gayle Rubin
All through the ages the African people have made efforts to deliver themselves from oppressive forces. -- Wangari Maathai
When a system of oppression has become institutionaliz ed it is unnecessary for individuals to be oppressive -- Florynce Kennedy
The Roman government appeared every day less formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects. -- Edward Gibbon
The suburbs are incredibly oppressive. I actually believe that the suburbs are much more dangerous than the ghettos. -- Aaron Rose
The ability of Americans to toss off oppressive characters is the most rewarding aspect, to me, of U.S. history. -- Norman Corwin
Misgovernment...will often be reflected in oppressive or aggressive policies towards groups within the state or towards the state's neighbours. -- Margaret Thatcher
Experience has taught me that any kind of political grouping is oppressive. It's the blind mass that crushes the individual. -- Gao Xingjian
In an oppressive society if a group stands up to take care of the lambs, it automatically stands up against the wolves. -- Vishal Mangalwadi
The feminist movement taught women to see themselves as victims of an oppressive patriarchy. ... Self-imposed victimhood is not a recipe for happiness. -- Phyllis Schlafly
If people with the very best intentions carry on prosecutions that are oppressive, the end may not always perhaps sanctify the means. -- Sherrilyn Kenyon
Is the Church fulfilling a purely religious role when by its silence or friendly relationships it lends legitimacy to dictatorial and oppressive government? -- Gustavo Gutiérrez
Assumptions that racism is more oppressive to black men than black women, then and now ... based on acceptance of patriarchal notions of masculinity. -- bell hooks
Is the Church fulfilling a purely religious role when by its silence or friendly relationships it lends legitimacy to dictatorial and oppressive government? -- Gustavo Gutiérrez
Love without laughter can be grim and oppressive. Laughter without love can be derisive and venomous. Together they make for greatness of spirit. -- Robert K. Greenleaf
I was born in Turkey in an extremely oppressive climate at the time of pogroms, massacres, really. An immigrant appreciates the freedom more. -- Elia Kazan
This was his world, he said to himself, the sad, oppressive world that God had provided for him, and he was responsible to it. -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we've turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform. -- Susan Cain
...the greatest political problem facing the world today is...how to curb the oppressive power of government, how to keep it within reasonable bounds. -- Leonard Read
In a heavy oppressive atmosphere, when the spirits sink too low, the best cordial is to read over all the letters of one's friends. -- William Shenstone
Oppressed people are frequently very oppressive when first liberated. They know but two positions: somebody's foot on their neck or their foot on somebody's neck. -- Florynce Kennedy
I think the adverb is a much-maligned part of speech. Its always accused of being oppressive, even tyrannical, when in fact its so supple and sly. -- Eleanor Catton
me, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three. -- Ambrose Bierce
It was something quite special, that feeling: an oppressive, hideous constraint as if I were sitting with the small ghost of somebody I had just killed. -- Vladimir Nabokov
I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute. -- Mark Twain
In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements in a work of art. -- Julian Barnes
There is relief coming. This is good for America. This means that we can lift the oppressive weight of the regulatory state. We can restore the Constitution. -- Paul Ryan
Freedom is not won by merely overthrowing a tyrannical ruler or an oppressive regime. That is usually only the prelude to a new tyranny, a new oppression. -- Jonathan Sacks
I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth, that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic. -- James Madison
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
When I take up my pen to write, I feel the strength of standing up and refusing to be silent. In an oppressive situation, silence is death. -- Chenjerai Hove
In sum, U.S. history is no more violent and oppressive than the history of England, Russia, Indonesia, or Burundi - but neither is it exceptionally less violent. -- James W. Loewen
Do we need recourse to a happier state before the law in order to maintain that contemporary gender relations and the punitive production of gender identities are oppressive? -- Judith Butler
There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God. -- Ryszard Kapuscinski
P33- Oppression is domesticating. Gravest obstacle to the achievement of liberation is that oppressive reality absorbs those within it and thereby acts to submerge human beings consciousness. -- Paulo Freire
Allah will support the just state even if it is led by unbelievers, but Allah will not support the oppressive state even if it is led by believers -- Ibn Taymiyyah
Small groups or communities may be far more oppressive to the individual than larger ones. Men are in many ways freer in large cities than in small villages. -- Morris Raphael Cohen
Prison is a second-by-second assault on the soul, a day-to-day degradation of the self, an oppressive steel and brick umbrella that transforms seconds into hours and hours into days. -- Mumia Abu-Jamal
...in my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatingly majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to breathe the dust of this painted life. -- Vladimir Nabokov
There is little that gives children greater pleasure than when a grown-up lets himself down to their level, renounces his oppressive superiority and plays with them as an equal. -- Sigmund Freud
Los Angeles was great fun because it was the polar opposite of Moscow in 1980. It was sunny and bright, lots of colours around, whereas Moscow was dark and oppressive. -- Daley Thompson
Nothing is so oppressive as a secret: women find it difficult to keep one long; and I know a goodly number of men who are women in this regard. -- Jean de La Fontaine
The thought, when written down, becomes less oppressive, but some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express is, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before. -- Vladimir Nabokov
Official morality has always been oppressive and negative: it has said "thou shalt not," and has not troubled to investigate the effect of activities not forbidden by the code. -- Bertrand Russell
We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man. -- James Madison
Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence - as it saves most writers who live in 'interesting' oppressive times and are not afflicted by personal immunity. -- Alice Walker
To me, when you're at a hotel and your home environment is ultimately dictated by somebody else, I always find that a little bit oppressive and scary in a way. -- Matt Bomer
It's interesting that people bring different things to oppressive and difficult situations, when they're reduced to the barest terms of survival. That's what provides tension in a lot of films. -- Sharon Salzberg
Our constancy, same might call it our madness, was necessary to wear down the oppressive forces of the old democracy which, in Spain, was a hundred years behind the times. -- Federica Montseny
The Kantian imperative to have the courage to think for oneself has involved a contemptuous disregard for the resources of tradition and an infantile view of authority as inherently oppressive. -- Terry Eagleton
I've enjoyed, to a certain extent, any country I've been in, of course like Serbia and Croatia can be very restrictive and oppressive, and frustrating, but they're still very beautiful. -- Henry Rollins
Up close the city constitutes an oppressive series of staircases, but from a distance it inspires fantasies of wealth and power so profound that even our communists are temporarily rendered speechless. -- David Sedaris
How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top? -- Pat Robertson
I've read the Bible, but I felt like a lot of the Bible was oppressive towards women. Then I read the Quran, and I thought it was also oppressive towards women. -- Robert Webb
The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations that we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us. -- Audre Lorde
Given the fact that I have a family and responsibilities, it's the mark of a man to find the courage to do what is right in the face of oppressive evil. -- John Rhys-Davies
All that waiting around for a glimmer of stage time, just getting angry every week. It was just an oppressive, horrible, horrible place to be. I went to work feeling nauseous. -- Jay Mohr
Doubtless the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive government in the world, if allowed the ballot, would use it, if they could see any chance of thereby ameliorating their condition. -- Lysander Spooner
Did we risk our lives to defend a just society, where guilt must be proven and not assumed? Or are we no better than the oppressive kings from whom our fathers fled? -- Julie Berry
Ultimately, being open and respectful towards each other is much more powerful as a way to diffuse hatred and anger than, you know, layering on, you know, big walls and oppressive policies. -- Justin Trudeau
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
To some degree we all find life difficult, perplexing, and oppressive. Even when it goes well, as it may for a time, we worry that it probably won't keep on that way. -- Joko Beck
Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can't. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth. -- Willem Dafoe
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
The surest way for a poor nation to stay poor is to harass, hobble, and straitjacket private enterprise or to discourage or destroy it by subsidized government competition, oppressive taxation, or outright expropriation. -- Henry Hazlitt
I bring good tidings to our beloved Prophet Muhammad: Allah's promise and the Prophet's prophecy of our victory in Palestine over the Jews and over the oppressive Zionists has begun to come true. -- Khaled Mashal
Anywhere in the world, in every oppressive country, time sooner or later comes and libertarian people sing the same song: Goodbye Mr Dictator! This is a universal law, this is a universal song. -- Mehmet Murat ildan
Life ... is a burden. The day about to begin is an oppressive weight.... The erect penis is heavy, even heavier the hanging one. Even the most tender breast has to be dragged along. -- Jean Améry
Will you stop drinking whiskey? Let me plead with you to do so. And if the sisters would not think it oppressive, I would ask them to not drink quite so much strong tea. -- Brigham Young
What can we put into the hands of people under oppressive regimes to help them? For me, a big part of it is information, knowledge - the ability to defeat propaganda by understanding it. -- Jimmy Wales
When I see the migrant workers broken bodies and eyes without hope, I want to embrace and wipe away their fears. It makes me angry and helps me to keep fighting the oppressive system. -- Irene Fernandez
Some doomsayers think the collapse will be triggered by runaway government spending, excessive taxation, oppressive regulation, food shortages, fuel shortages or natural disasters such as deadly pandemics or lethal changes in the world's climate. -- Robert Higgs
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite. -- Ronald Reagan
Enjoy what thou has inherited from thy sires if thou wouldn't really possess it. What we employ and use is never an oppressive burden; what the moment brings forth, that only can it profit by. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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