Quotes about Oppression

The absolute monopoly of the soil, the gripping and the strangling of the populace by landlords, is a purely Protestant development.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise.

God wants to set the oppressed free from being oppressed and the oppressors free from oppressing.

The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want.

America hates the artist. It will not admit: the artist is my soul and I want to kill off my soul.

Our society doesn't want to help girls like that [in Black Snake Moan]. They just want to use them.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

The man who could go to Africa and rob her of her children, and then sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer that he can never receive pardon at my hand.

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

I have lived under totalitarian Communism, so I prize freedom as much as anyone and have long fought for freedom of conscience and speech.

Jesus was Jewish. He went to synagogue "as was his tradition" and celebrated holy days such as Passover. But Jesus also healed on the Sabbath. Jesus points us to a God who is able to work within institutions and order, a God who is too big to be confined. God is constantly coloring outside the lines. Jesus challenges the structures that oppress and exclude, and busts through any traditions that put limitations on love. Love cannot be harnessed.