"Women make up one half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated"
— Saddam Hussein (The Revolution and Woman in Iraq)

"I just wondered what a thing it would be...if overnight everything you owe anything to, justice, or love, had really gone away. Free.

It would be...heartless terror. Yes. Terrible, and...

Very great. To shed your skin, every old skin, one by one and then walk away, unemcumbered, into the morning."
— Tony Kushner (Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches)

"You can do anything you want. You don't believe me. You think, she's out of her head. Yeah, I'm out of my head- on being me. What are you on? On being them. You don't even know. I bet you were never given a chance to know. ....Listen. You can be anything you want to be. Be careful. It's a spell. It's magic. Listen to the words.... You are anything...everyone, anyone. ...You listen to them, teachers, parents, politicians. They're always saying, if you steal you're a thief, if you sleep aroung you're a slut, if you take drugs you're a junkie. They want to get inside your head and control you with their fear. ...Don't play their game. Nothing can touch you; you stay beautiful. "
— Melvin Burgess (Smack)

"Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."
— Martin Luther King Jr.

"Freedom is never given; it is won."
— A. Philip Randolph

"Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress."
— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

"Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future."
— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

"If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."
— Aboriginal Activsts' Group (of which Lila Watson was a member), Queensland, 1970s

"The oppressors do not favor promoting the community as a whole, but rather selected leaders."
— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

"To simply think about the people, as the dominators do, without any self-giving in that thought, to fail to think with the people, is a sure way to cease being revolutionary leaders. "
— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are
presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new
evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is
extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it
is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize,
ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."
— Frantz Fanon (Black Skin, White Masks)

"All the gods are dead but the god of war."
— Elridge Cleaver

"A liberation movement is doomed once it stops to haggle over nuances of good and evil."
— V Y Mudimbe

"The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty."
— Simon Bolivar

"It is a mistake to consider any belief more liberated than another. It is the possibility of change which is important. Every new form of liberation is destined to eventually become another form of enslavement for most of its adherents. There is no freedom from duality on this plane of existence, but one may at least aspire to choice of duality."
— Peter J. Carroll (Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic)

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."
— Albert Einstein