Peter Abrahams Quotes

The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.

You cannot play the Song of Freedom on an instrument of oppression.

I've always hated oppression.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

But you know, the system almost destroyed itself while it was goin' on trying to destroy us.

The language marches in step with the executioners. Therefore we must get a new language.

Till people find themselves greatly abused and oppressed by their governors, they are not apt to complain; and whenever they do, in fact, find themselves thus abused and oppressed, they must be stupid not to complain.

Nothing exasperates the spirit in man more than power which seems unconquerable and which makes impotent all protest.

Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.

The seed of revolution is repression.

What has the North to do with slavery? What have we to do with it, indeed! when it encircles us like the air we breathe -- as invisible but as ever near us -- when it makes our laws, controls our interests, appoints our rulers, sets a price upon our heads, demands the sacrifice of our free utterance, disfranchises in one half the States the citizens when the Constitution has made free every where--when it makes Religion its pander, and the Church its sanctuary!

Thought that is silenced is always rebellious.

Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion

Someone once said that under the bell jar of compliance, the only thing that blooms is rage.

Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.

They say that oppression engenders hate. They are heard on all sides crying hate hate.

Down through the centuries, this trick has been tried by various establishments throughout the world. They force people to get involved in the kind of examination that has only one aim and that is to stamp out dissent.

To silence criticism is to silence freedom.

Protest and anger practically always derives from hope, and the shouting out against injustice is always in the hope of those injustices being somewhat corrected and a little more justice established.

The oppressed never free themselves - they do not have the necessary strengths.

Intellectuals try to keep going. But their situation is very difficult. Those who have had the courage to voice their opposition have often paid a very high price.

Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

I think I've always had a certain amount of skepticism of this whole 'shut up and smile' theory. I haven't ever swallowed that pill so easily, although I tried.

When I don't feel free and can't do what I want I just react. I go against it.