Clare Boothe Luce Quotes

When you're talking about an authority figure oppressing against people, it's the people that hold that authority figure up. If you want to get free of this bondage, then we need to think about ways to free ourselves rather than looking to the oppressors to free us.

A status not freely chosen or entered into by an individual or a group is necessarily one of oppression and the oppressed are by their nature (i.e., oppressed) forever in ferment and agitation against their condition and what they understand to be their oppressors. If not by overt rebellion or revolution, then in the thousand and one ways they will devise with and without consciousness to alter their condition

The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise!

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

If we accept the rule of those who think they are the bosses and lords of Mexico, nothing will change for the people on the bottom.

Progress is always relative: to the oppressed, it can only be viewed as an all or nothing deal - if oppression continues, even in a modified form, then the system must still be attacked until that injustice is eradicated.

The role of the inhabitants of the American hemisphere has for centuries been purely passive. Politically they were nonexistent. We are still in a position lower than slavery, and therefore it is more difficult for us to rise to the enjoyment of freedom.

The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.

If you are going to organize and ask for commitment, you cannot go to the most desperately poor. They are not likely to take action. If you stand on a man's head and push it into the dirt, he may not even see the heel of your boot. But if his whole face is already above ground, he can see your heel and he can see freedom ahead.

Not only was I not born to be a slave; I was not born to hope to become the equal of the slave master.

The cry of the Have-Nots has never been "give us our hearts," but always "get off our backs"; they ask not for love but for breathing space.

In a change of masters the poor change nothing except their master's name.

Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery.

Look at the forces against me. They don't want me out. They're afraid I'll cause trouble if I get out.

Who Rebels? Who rises in arms? Rarely the slave, but almost always the oppressor turned slave.

Women have to be extremely careful about choosing something that they consider an act of defiance that can really be used to further their enslavement.

To hold a people in oppression you have to convince them first that they are supposed to be oppressed.

One of the things that always comes up in my writing is the search for freedom, especially in women. I always write about women who are marginalized, who have no means or resources and somehow manage to get out of those situations with incredible strength - and that is more important than anything.

Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it.

The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom.

It has always seemed to me that those who are without power, who have to create their own in a makeshifit way, know more about life than those who govern.

The margins don't get erased by simply insisting that the powers-that-be erase them.

Justice often means taking power from some who have it and giving it to some who do not.

A heavy aristocracy and corruption are two bridles in the mouths of a people which will prevent them from making any effectual efforts against their masters.

The one without a sword gets humiliated.