Edward Bond Quotes

Taught to regard a part of our own Species in the most abject and contemptible Degree below us, we lose that Idea of the dignity of Man which the Hand of Nature had implanted in us, for great and useful purposes.

Denying any person their humanity is a game we should all stop playing.

To deny people of their human rights is to challenge their very humanity. To impose on them a wretched life of huger and deprivation is to dehumanize them. But such has been the terrible fate of all black persons in our country under the system of apartheid.

The idea of some people being less than people is poison to any society and needs to be named as such in order to halt its spread before it turns the soul of a society septic.

We were not treated by our own government as proper human beings and consequently, some outsiders did not regard us as the same kind of humans as themselves.

Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.

I'd always been treated like an object, not like a human.

What are your masses [of humanity] but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?

Whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed.

Slaves no doubt, but still men.

Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily.

When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that's a violation of basic human rights.

I think that the dehumanization of another person can happen in the matter of an instant.

If we can look at another human being and categorise them as 'illegal,' or that chilling American word 'alien,' then what has become of our own humanity?

Oppression involves a failure of the imagination: the failure to imagine the full humanity of other human beings.

Anywhere where the humanity of people is undermined, anywhere where people are left in the dust, there we will find our cause.

What crimes, for which we condemn the Government as satanic, have not we been guilty of towards our own untouchable brethren?

I see myself in all the people in the world who are suffering and who are very badly treated and who are often made to feel that they have no place on this Earth.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

I'd become sort of involved in things that were happening to people. No matter what color they be, whether they be Indians, or Negroes, the poor white person or anyone who was I thought more or less getting a bad shake.

Unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded.

When an individual is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he does become inferior.

What causes terrorism is disrespect, a lack of justice, and poverty.

In poor countries, the rich and powerful crush the poor and powerless.

There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.