Hitherto, every form of society has been based ... on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes.
KARL MARX, The Communist Manifesto
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means -- except by getting off his back.
The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him, they crush those beneath them.
EMILY BRONTE, Wuthering Heights
The more you try to suppress us, the larger we get.
If I were going to set out to oppress other people, I would surely prefer to select for my victims persons whose first response is forgiveness rather than persons whose first response is revenge.
JEFFRIE G. MURPHY, Getting Even
Death is preferable -- it is a milder fate than tyranny.
Once slavery in America was not seen as radical. It became, instead, a revolutionary idea that slaves should be freed. When we have lived under a pernicious power long enough, no matter how oppressive, we grow so accustomed to the yoke that its removal seems frightening, even wrong.
GERRY L. SPENCE, From Freedom to Slavery
To answer oppression with appropriate resistance requires knowledge of two kinds: in the first place, self-knowledge by the victim, which means awareness that oppression exists, an awareness that the victim has fallen from a great height of glory or promise into the present depths; secondly, the victim must know who the enemy is. He must know his oppressor's real name, not an alias, a pseudonym, or a nom de plume!
CHINUA ACHEBE, The Education of a British-Protected Child
Oppression cannot prosper where none will submit to be enslaved.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
Oppression makes a poor country.
WILLIAM PENN, Some Fruits of Solitude
The oppressed always learned from and copied the oppressor. When the tables were turned, the stage was set for another round of revenge and violence -- roles reversed. And reversed and reversed ad nauseam.
FRANK HERBERT, Chapterhouse: Dune
- All the gang of those who rule us
- Hope our quarrels never stop
- Helping them to split and fool us
- So they can remain on top.
BERTOLT BRECHT, "Solidarity Song"
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.
KARL MARX, The Communist Manifesto
