Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will read more

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this read more

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun read more

Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing [a people] to slavery.

First we kill all the subversives; then, their collaborators; later, those who sympathize with them; afterward, those who remain indifferent; read more

First we kill all the subversives; then, their collaborators; later, those who sympathize with them; afterward, those who remain indifferent; and finally, the undecided.

A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man.

A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man.

Oppression can only survive through silence.

Oppression can only survive through silence.

Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it.

Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it.

You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who read more

Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.