Subcomandante Marcos Quotes

Oppression costs the oppressor too much if the oppressed stand up and protest.

it is immoral for powerless people to accept this powerlessness. They may not succeed in getting power but they can fight for it, and if enough fight for it, it makes it very difficult for the people with the big sticks.

The basic idea of a hero rising up to represent an oppressed or disenfranchised group of people is as true to hip-hop as it is comic book lore.

Never befriend the oppressed unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.

Fear is the greatest form of oppression. The best way to rise up in protest is to live your life to its fullest!

The only way I can pay back for what fate and society have handed me is to try, in minor totally useless ways, to make an angry sound against injustice.

Power cedes nothing without a demand.

I think history repeats itself. There's a constant conversation between the oppressed and the oppressor. No matter what your field is, whether it's gender equality, the Time's Up movement, or diversity casting, it's always going to be a back-and-forth battle.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress....This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

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.

I seek … the means to fight injustice. To turn fear against those who prey on the fearful.

Lost rights are never regained by appeals to the conscience of the usurpers, but by relentless struggle....goa ts are used for sacrificial offerings and not lions.

Often those who are denied rights are least empowered to bring about the changes they seek.

I'm not going to sit around and be peace and love with somebody's boot on my neck.

Tommy moved on. "Lash, your people have been oppressed for hundreds of years. It's time to strike back. Look, you don't have your MBA yet - they haven't completely juiced you of your usefulness yet. Would Martin Luther King back down from this challenge? Malcolm X? James Brown? Don't you have a dream? Don't you feel good, like you knew that you would, now?

If given a choice, I would have certainly selected to be what I am: one of the oppressed instead of one of the oppressors.

This is Not Another Revolution. This is a Civil Rights Movement

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

No change can come if those who are impacted the most by discrimination are not willing to stand up for themselves.

Facing sexism and racism and classism and transphobia, there are ways to choose to act in those situations, and there shouldn't be a prescriptive list of things that you have to say.

Probably I understand very much the people who rise against injustice.

The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

Each one of our ideas should benefit the people with less power than us.

I want to be the voice and the vision for the poor and the powerless.