This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If oppression and wrong should gain the ascendancy, and injustice stalk abroad in the land, and all else fail him; nevertheless his humblest roof, and all things that are sheltered beneath it, would find, somehow, someway, a final refuge and protection in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Injustice | Injustice | Oppression | Wrong |
The conception of worth, that each person is an end per se, is not a mere abstraction. Our interest in it is not merely academic. Every outcry against the oppression of some people by other people, or against what is morally hideous is the affirmation of the principle that a human being as such is not to be violated. A human being is not to be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered.
Oppression | People |
When a system of oppression has become institutionalized it is unnecessary for individuals to be oppressive.
Oppression | System |
The term "just war" contains an internal contradiction. War is inherently unjust, and the great challenge of our time is how to deal with evil, tyranny, and oppression without killing huge numbers of people.
Challenge | Oppression | Time | War |
The longer I live the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and wonder of the world… I have loved the feel of the grass under my feet, and the sound of the running streams by my side. The hum of the wind in the treetops has always been good music to me, and the face of the fields has often comforted me more than the faces of men. I am in love with this world...I have tilled its soil, I have gathered its harvest, I have waited upon its seasons, and always have I reaped what I have sown. I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.
Beauty | Fury | Good | Joy | Love | Mind | Music | Oppression | Sound | Wonder | Beauty |
John Dickinson, pen name Fabius
No free people ever existed, or can ever exist, without keeping the purse strings in their own hands. Where this is the case, they have a constitutional check upon the administration, which may thereby by brought into order without violence. But when such a power is not lodged in the people, oppression proceeds uncontrolled in its career, till the governed, transported into rage, seek redress in the midst of blood and confusion.
Oppression | Order | People | Power |
We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of anyone, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours.
Opinion | Oppression |
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
It is a tragedy when the mind, soul and heart are in slavery in a way of life which refuses to recognize that people have rights before God. It is a war which makes hate a badge of honor, slavery the keystone to prosperity. Not to resist would make one an accomplice to crime.... We must resist oppression and tyranny. We have to end it no matter what it costs.
Hate | Heart | Life | Life | Oppression | People | Rights | Slavery | Soul | Tragedy | War |
In Africa where so many different kinds of political, social and economic conditions exist it is not an easy task to generalise on political and socio-economic patterns. Remnants of communalism and feudalism still remain and in parts of the continent ways of life have changed very little from traditional times. In other areas a high level of industrialization and urbanization has been achieved. Yet in spite of Africa's socioeconomic and political diversity it is possible to discern certain common political, social and economic conditions and problems. These derive from traditional past, common aspirations, and from shared experience under imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism. There is no part of the continent which has not known oppression and exploitation, and no part which remains outside the processes of the African Revolution.
Diversity | Experience | Life | Life | Little | Oppression |
Learned Hand, fully Billings Learned Hand
I had rather take my chance that some traitors will escape detection than spread abroad a spirit of general suspicion and distrust, which accepts rumor and gossip in place of undismayed and unintimidated inquiry.
Chance | Detection | Rumor | Spirit | Suspicion | Will | Gossip |
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.
Agitation | Consciousness | Individual | Nature | Oppression | Rebellion | Will | Understand |
Lucretia Mott, fully Lucretia Coffin Mott
Liberty is not less a blessing, because oppression has so long darkened the mind that it can not appreciate it.
Mind | Oppression |
Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
It is a double-edged makeshift to entrust an individual or a group of individuals with the authority to resort to violence. The enticement implied is too tempting for a human being. The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors. They transgress their mandate. They misuse their power for the oppression of those whom they were expected to defend against oppression. The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty.
Aggression | Authority | Individual | Meaning | Men | Oppression | Power |
No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child.
Conventional opinions fit so comfortably into the dominant paradigm as to be seen not as opinions but as statements of fact, as 'the nature of things.' The very efficacy of opinion manipulation rests on the fact that we do not know we are being manipulated. The most insidious forms of oppression are those that so insinuate themselves into our communication universe and the recesses of our minds that we do not even realize they are acting upon us. The most powerful ideologies are not those that prevail against all challengers but those that are never challenged because in their ubiquity they appear as nothing more than the unadorned truth.
Nature | Nothing | Opinion | Oppression | Universe |
Mikhail Bakunin, fully Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin
We are firmly convinced that the most imperfect republic is a thousand times better than the most enlightened monarchy. In a republic, there are at least brief periods when the people, while continually exploited, is not oppressed; in the monarchies, oppression is constant. The democratic regime also lifts the masses up gradually to participation in public life--something the monarchy never does. Nevertheless, while we prefer the republic, we must recognise and proclaim that whatever the form of government may be, so long as human society continues to be divided into different classes as a result of the hereditary inequality of occupations, of wealth, of education, and of rights, there will always be a class-restricted government and the inevitable exploitation of the majorities by the minorities. The State is nothing but this domination and this exploitation, well regulated and systematised.
Better | Government | Inequality | Inevitable | Nothing | Oppression | Public | Society | Will | Society | Government |
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.
Experience | Land | Oppression | Will |
Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
I must deal immediately and at some length with the question of violence. Some of the things so far told to the Court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites.