W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes

I just don't believe that when people are being unjustly oppressed that they should let someone else set rules for them by which they can come out from under that oppression.

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.

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.

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

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

An oppressed people will always rise.

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

Don’t play with us. If you’re not going to give us justice, let us go so that we may help ourselves….We can’t want for benevolent white people to give us handouts.

I live in the United States, but I do not know exactly where. My address is wherever there is a fight against oppression. My address is like my shoes; it travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong.

In all the Arab countries I have been in, the people have said that they were not demonstrating for food. They wanted dignity.

It was imperative to make common cause with the oppressed in order to secure a new system opposed to the ambitions and governing habits of the oppressors.

I know we have to have people of good conscience who stand up against oppression. I know we have to have people who understand that social justice belongs to us all. And that wakes me up every morning, and that makes me fight even harder.

Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying "Enough!" He is every minority who is now beginning to speak and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable - this is Marcos.

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

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.

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

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

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.

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

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.

Riot is the voice of the unheard.

The great appear great to us only because we are on our knees;, LET US RISE!

Who are we to judge the people of Ecuador? We cannot condemn people when they take to the streets.

Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny