Self-Oppression Quotes

If you can control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.

When you're at war with yourself, you will go under.

You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.

My hatred is precious. I don't want to waste it on those who are colluding in their own oppression.

Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.

It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are yourself the slave-driver.

The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breasts.

A Tyrant is most tyrant to himselfe.

I find it really unique that the black community, who has been oppressed and is still oppressed, can find a way to oppress themselves, and ourselves, within it.

I think this is what people misunderstand about Martin Luther King saying to love your enemies. They think he was just using this silly little phrase, but what he meant was that as Black Americans we need to let our anger go, because holding on to it we hold ourselves down. We oppress ourselves by holding on to anger.