Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [201-220] of 443 Oppression quotesOppression QuotesOppression Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.~ Thomas Jefferson The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.~ Thomas Jefferson I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. Our land-holders, too, like theirs, retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs but held really in trust for the treasury, must wander, like theirs, in foreign countries, and be contented with penury, obscurity, exile, and the glory of the nation. This example reads to us the salutary lesson, that private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagances. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for the second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.~ Thomas Jefferson That this privilege of giving or of withholding our monies is an important barrier against the undue exertion of prerogative, which if left altogether without control may be exercised to our great oppression; and all history shews how efficacious is its intercession for redress of grievances and re-establishment of rights, and how improvident would be the surrender of so powerful a mediator.~ Thomas Jefferson Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.~ Thomas Jefferson An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.~ Thomas Jefferson If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.~ Thomas Jefferson The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded, are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us ...~ Thomas Jefferson Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.~ Jesus of Nazareth Persecution is the first law of society because it is always easier to suppress criticism than to meet it.~ Howard Mumford Jones Whenever justice is uncertain and police spying and terror are at work, human beings fall into isolation, which, of course, is the aim and purpose of the dictator state, since it is based on the greatest possible accumulation of depotentiated social units.~ Carl Gustav Jung Drug offenses ... may be regarded as the prototypes of non-victim crimes today. The private nature of the sale and use of these drugs has led the police to resort to methods of detection and surveillance that intrude upon our privacy, including illegal search, eavesdropping, and entrapment. Indeed, the successful prosecution of such cases often requires police infringement of the constitutional protections that safeguard the privacy of individuals.~ John Kaplan We simply do not catch a high enough percentage of users to make the law a real threat, although we do catch enough to seriously overburden our legal system.~ John Kaplan My ancestors were Puritans from England. They arrived here in 1648 in the hope of finding greater restrictions than were permissible under English law at that time.~ Garrison Keillor We have met the enemy and he is us.~ Walt Kelly Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.~ John F. Kennedy I firmly believe that the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolent resistance is the only logical and moral approach to the solution of the race problem in the United States.~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it.~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print