Jean-Paul Sartre Quotes

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

You have been having our rights so long, that you think, like a slave-holder, that you own us. I know that it is hard for one who has held the reins for so long to give up; it cuts like a knife. It will feel all the better when it closes up again.

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

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

Silence is the first thing within the power of the enslaved to shatter. From that shattering, everything else spills forth.

In raising a people from slavery to freedom, you have called them to act on a new theatre; and it is a necessary part of your business, to teach them how to perform their parts.

Subjection of any kind and in any place is beneath the dignity of man ... the highest joy is to fight by the side of those who for any reason of their own making or ours, are unable to develop to full human stature.

They tell me: If you see a slave sleeping, do not wake him lest he be dreaming of freedom. I tell them: If you see a slave sleeping, wake him and explain to him freedom.

Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings.

When I first went to jail in 1960 with seven classmates trying to use their public library against the backdrop of my father being a veteran of World War II, not being able to use - having to sit behind Nazi on American military bases, I lost my fear of jails and death.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been interested in issues of social justice, political freedom, and civil rights.

A lot of prophets have gone to jail.

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.

A group oppressed, is a group enslaved ….Whenever a group, a community of people, in unison, feels that it is being oppressed, and that it wants to control its destiny, then that community has a moral right to seek effective redress, or demand to control its own destiny as appropriate

No people will be truly free until all are free.

Neither God, nor angels, or just men, command you to suffer for a single moment. Therefore it is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means, both moral, intellectual, and physical, that promise success .... Brethren, arise, arise! Strike for your lives and liberties.... Let your motto be resistance, resistance, resistance!

We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued.

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

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power — he’s free again.

One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.

The main fight of Frelimo is against human exploitation.

It is hard for the old slave holding spirit to die. But die it must.

The march to freedom is irreversible.

The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.

Freedom is not a gift of heaven, you have to fight for it every day