Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We think of the 1950s as an oppressive time in the culture, and indeed it was, but it was also in many ways a more secular moment, and one in which great scientific achievements flourished. I don't want to get too gauzy about this, but there was much more respect for science as a necessary part of society.
I don't hold America responsible for the largely oppressive governments in the 22 Arab countries. There are repressive Arab governments that are our allies and there are those that are our nominal enemies. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference to what extent we're involved in propping up those governments.
My parents realized the dangers of raising a daughter in a social, political, and legal climate that was growing increasingly oppressive toward women and girls. Although they fled to London when I was just three weeks old, the challenges facing women's rights in Iran became ingrained in my social consciousness.
I've got my interests and my life experiences as I'm putting lyrics together. And if you start looking at patterns, you start thinking, 'Well, what am I really singing about here?' A lot of it seems to be a battle for some freedom against oppressive forces. That seems to be a theme in a lot of the albums I've done.
We know that dismantling old oppressive regimes is a great deal faster and easier than building new flourishing democracies. Chinggis Khaan once said, 'It was easier to conquer the world on horseback than to dismount and govern.' True validation of democracy lies less in what we tear down, and more in what we build.
Broken-windows enforcement is really about controlling behavior to such an extent you change it: If you deal with the little things, you can keep them from going into the big things. Zero tolerance implies zealotry. It's oppressive. And it's not achievable. You're never going to be in a position to eliminate all crime.
I think we've become blind in this country to the ways in which we've managed to reinvent a caste-like system here in the United States, one that functions in a manner that is as oppressive, in many respects, as the one that existed in South Africa under apartheid and that existed under Jim Crow here in the United States.
Every year, our white intruders become more greedy, exacting, oppressive, and overbearing. Every year, contentions spring up between them and our people, and when blood is shed, we have to make atonement, whether right or wrong, at the cost of the lives of our greatest chiefs and the yielding up of large tracts of our lands.
America's sanctions policy is largely consistent and, in a certain sense, admirable. By applying economic restraints, we label the most oppressive and dangerous governments in the world pariahs. We wash our hands of evil, declining to help despots finance their depredations, even at a cost to ourselves of some economic growth.
They did laugh; they did fall in love. And while they were under incredibly oppressive conditions, they constantly were trying to steal pleasures. When you go back to the slave narratives, and you read books like the 'Bullwhip Days' or 'Incidents in the Life of the Slave Girl,' they will share what life was like, and it's a 365-degree view.