Divide And Conquer Quotes

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Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.
Eleanor Roosevelt
First time I saw you, after I got over hating you, I knew,” he said, echoing Ty’s words, “I knew I’d fall in love with you
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
You’re not dessert, Zane. You’re the main course, Ty informed him in a husky drawl. And you have about five seconds to take your pick of flat surface before I do it for you.
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
Ty.” Zane’s even, soothing tones finally broke on the short gasp of his name. “I love you and I’m scared I’ll lose you. Please don’t leave me alone in the dark.
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
Divide and Conquer.
Gaius Julius Caesar
He loved Ty Grady with all there was to give of his heart, and in the end, all it had taken was one wink for Zane to finally come to terms with it.
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
Earthlings, full of diversity, generally weren't hostile toward each other. The Earth was like a big insect jar. Insects put into a jar together tended not to fight unless the jar was agitated enough. If the jar owners put different types of ants in the same jar without agitating their habitat enough, they might just work together to overthrow the jar owners and build a happy society where everyone was equal and free. And we can't have that. Gotta keep shakin' that jar.
Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
Divide and conquer. That's my new family motto
Colleen Hoover (Slammed (Slammed, #1))
As more people of color raise our consciousness and refuse to be pitted against one another, the forces of neo-colonial white supremacist domination must work harder to divide and conquer.
bell hooks (Killing Rage: Ending Racism)
Marines either know how to use an iron or they get married [...]. The iron is less dangerous.
Madeleine Urban (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
It’s the invention of clothes, not nature, that made “private parts” private.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
When two brothers are busy fighting, an evil man can easily attack and rob their poor mother. Mankind should always stay united, standing shoulder to shoulder so evil can never cheat and divide them.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
Promise you’ll scream for me tonight.
Madeleine Urban (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
They didn't know Zane like he did. Ty knew his partner had to take the issue from every angle, analyze it to death, resurrect it, and then study its dead, rotting body to see the results. Yeah, it might take Zane four months to decide if he loved someone, and then more to decide if that was a good idea. Ty didn't mind waiting.
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
You ever get gut feelings? Like you see something and you just know?” Ty asked, feeling stupid but not caring. He felt Zane squeeze his hand. “First time I saw you, after I got over hating you, I knew… I knew we’d die together. I could just feel it deep down. Never felt that before.
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
Well, you know my type," Ty responded with a saccharine smile as he passed Zane's desk. "No self control and loads of mental issues.
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
The failure of academic feminists to recognize difference as a crucial strength is a failure to reach beyond the first patriarchal lesson. In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower.
Audre Lorde (Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches)
He wanted Ty with him, wanted him badly. Needed him as a partner, and not just at work. Craved him as a lover more than he’d ever jonesed over heroin. Connected with him in so many ways that Zane couldn’t see a way to untangle himself and didn’t even want to try
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
The world I remember was tired and racist and volatile as hell, ripe for a hostile takeover by a shit regime. We were already divided. The conquering was easy.
Tahereh Mafi (Restore Me (Shatter Me, #4))
If love wasn't conditional, everybody would be in love with everybody.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The prospect of calling Zane’s parents to tell them he was seriously injured, and oh, by the way, I’m your son’s partner who let him go by himself into the building that blew up, nice to meet you, has he told you he likes cock?
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
Religion is a non-alcoholic man's alcohol. Alcohol is a non-religious man's religion.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
Homophobia is the ignorant and arrogant assumption that copulation and reproduction is all there is to a relationship.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
Divide and rule, the politician cries; Unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Gedichte)
We all sat there laughing and sipping tea peacefully, an infidel and representatives from three warring sects of Islam. And I thought if we can get along this well, we can accomplish anything. The British policy was ‘divide and conquer.’ But I say ‘unite and conquer.
Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time)
When a man cheats, it is said it is because he is a dog. When a woman cheats, it is said it is because her man is a dog.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
Ty." Zane's even, soothing tones finally broke on the short gasp of his name. "I Love you and I'm scared I'll lose you. Please don't leave me alone in the dark.
Madeleine Urban (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
So how you’re gonna play this?” Trenton asked. “Divide and conquer.” “Divide what?” “His head from the rest of his body.” Trenton nodded quickly. “Good plan.
Jamie McGuire (Walking Disaster (Beautiful, #2))
Unite to win. Divide to conquer.
Donald J. Trump (Midas Touch)
He‟d told Ty that he loved him, no ifs, ands, or buts. There was no going back now, and Zane wouldn‟t if he had the chance. But damn, they had to call some kind of moratorium on important declarations during life-threatening situations.
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
When apparent stability disintegrates, As it must-- God is Change-- People tend to give in To fear and depression, To need and greed. When no influence is strong enough To unify people They divide. They struggle, One against one, Group against group, For survival, position, power. They remember old hates and generate new ones, The create chaos and nurture it. They kill and kill and kill, Until they are exhausted and destroyed, Until they are conquered by outside forces, Or until one of them becomes A leader Most will follow, Or a tyrant Most fear.
Octavia E. Butler (Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1))
Entrepreneurs must organize their business for success by developing a project management mindset that allows them to plan, build, divide, and conquer.
Curtis L. Jenkins (Vision to Reality: Stop Working, Start Living)
Many toxic parents compare one sibling unfavorably with another to make the target child feel that he's not doing enough to gain parental affection. This motivates the child to do whatever the parents want in order to regain their favor. This divide-and-conquer technique is often unleashed against children who become a little too independent, threatening the balance of the family system.
Susan Forward (Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life)
I’m sorry. Walls are closing in and I need to go. Love you.
Abigail Roux
In the Bible, a woman was made from a man. In real life, a man is made from a woman.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Dinner later. My house. Bring clothes for the weekend, ’cause you won’t be making it home.” Ty didn’t say another word, just turned and headed for the elevator at a stroll, shrugging into his overcoat as he went. Zane watched him go, enjoying the sight. “Score,” he said under his breath before he grabbed his phone and keys and hurried to follow.
Madeleine Urban (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
His accent was deep Louisiana, which meant half the time he wasn't coherent and the other half he was bitching at them for not answering his questions.
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
What's proper workplace etiquette for picking up computer and tossing out window? Open window first or break glass?
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower.
Audre Lorde (Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches)
Yet if women are so flighty, fickle, changeable, susceptible, and inconstant (as some clerks would have us believe), why is it that their suitors have to resort to such trickery to have their way with them? And why don't women quickly succumb to them, without the need for all this skill and ingenuity in conquering them? For there is no need to go to war for a castle that is already captured. (...) Therefore, since it is necessary to call on such skill, ingenuity, and effort in order to seduce a woman, whether of high or humble birth, the logical conclusion to draw is that women are by no means as fickle as some men claim, or as easily influenced in their behaviour. And if anyone tells me that books are full of women like these, it is this very reply, frequently given, which causes me to complain. My response is that women did not write these books nor include the material which attacks them and their morals. Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence. But if women had written these books, I know full well the subject would have been handled differently. They know that they stand wrongfully accused, and that the cake has not been divided up equally, for the strongest take the lion's share, and the one who does the sharing out keeps the biggest portion for himself.
Christine de Pizan (Der Sendbrief vom Liebesgott / The Letter of the God of Love (L'Epistre au Dieu d'Amours))
I do not use words like liberal or conservative. You can ask me a question and I will give you an answer. Those are words rich people on television use to divide and conquer.
Charles Barkley
One by one I could handle them, but if they combined into a mob of three I would have trouble. Divide and conquer would be my motto.
Margaret Atwood (The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale, #2))
It isn’t about changing the mechanics of economics. It is about changing the ideas, the dogmas that have driven economics for centuries: debt and fear, insufficiency, divide and conquer.
John Perkins (The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man)
What kind of Muslim are you? The question seems odd, but for those who seek to divide and conquer Islam, the answer has become increasingly important. Even more disturbing are the labels we assign ourselves.
Yasmin Mogahed (Reclaim Your Heart)
When we give our minds and our responsibility away, we give our lives away. If enough of us do it, we give the world away and that is precisely what we have been doing throughout known human history. This is why the few have always controlled the masses. The only difference today is that the few are now manipulating the entire planet because of the globalisation of business, banking and communications. The foundation of that control has always been the same : keep the people in ignorance, fear and at war with themselves,. Divide, rule and conquer while keeping the most important knowledge to yourself.
David Icke (The Biggest Secret: The Book That Will Change the World)
he still knows how to rouse his rabble, how to reach out to poor people, and sic them on other poor people. How much of this nonsense does he believe, I wonder, and how much does he say just because he knows the value of dividing in order to conquer and to rule?
Octavia E. Butler (Parable of the Talents (Earthseed, #2))
Not all ‘whites’ are racists. Not all racists are ‘white.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
How much of this nonsense does he believe, I wonder, and how much does he say just because he knows the value of dividing in order to conquer and to rule? Well,
Octavia E. Butler (Parable of the Talents (Earthseed, #2))
the ‘divide & conquer’ principle has been successfully implemented on our planet and is being used very effectively to keep us under control and in a perpetual state of conflict.
Michael Tellinger (UBUNTU Contributionism - A Blueprint For Human Prosperity)
Suddenly there were all sorts of words crowding on Zane's tongue, and he couldn't get a single one out, much less three that would prove he knew the best thing to happen to him in his entire life lay right there in his arms.
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
A salary is, to a man's employer, what his wife's vagina is to his wife: a tool used to (1) reward; and (2) control him.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
A united people is a smoldering revolution. A divided people is a conquered people.
Richard Paul Evans (Storm of Lightning (Michael Vey, #5))
The weak forgive none, the strong forgive some, the great forgive many, and the enlightened forgive all. Trust unites, fear divides, mercy heals, and love conquers.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Few realize that political action offers little solution to the world’s major problems. Few understand that the elite have created political parties in order to prevent real change from ever taking place. The political arena is merely the “sty” in which two or more mutually hostile agencies, created by the same hidden hand, get the chance to pummel one another. As alternative researcher Juri Lina so brilliantly put it: When the left wing Freemason is finished, the right-wing Freemason takes over The point has been emphasized by many an insider: The elementary principle of all deception is to attract the enemy’s attention to what you wish him to see and to distract his attention from what you so not wish him to see – General Sir Archibald Wavel The world’s power structures have always ‘divided to conquer’ and have always ‘kept divided to keep conquered.’ As a consequence the power structure has so divided humanity – not only into special function categories but into religious and language and color categories – that individual humans are now helplessly inarticulate in the face of the present crisis. They consider their political representation to be completely corrupted, therefore, they feel almost utterly helpless
R. Buckminster Fuller (Critical Path)
Every test in our life makes us bitter or better, every problem comes to break us or makes us. The choice is ours whether we become victim or victor. Everyone goes through problems, but never let the Devil win a battle where he wants to divide and conquer. Which are you? A victim or a victor?
Lorenzo Dozier (31 Days to Live)
Man usually sees what he is looking for; seldom what he is looking at.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We are all born agnostics. Atheism and theism is sold to us.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
So how you're gonna play this?" Trenton asked. "Divide and conquer." "Divide what?" "His head from the rest of his body." Trenton nodded quickly. "Good plan.
Jamie McGuire (Walking Disaster (Beautiful, #2))
Society tells boys to divide and conquer, and tells girls to save ourselves for some younger future version of our father. Just doing some quick math in my head and…yep, that comes out to a bunch of hypocritical bullshit. Your self-worth is not tied up in your vagina or how many girls came before you.
Elle Kennedy (The Dare (Briar U, #4))
When the media is controlled by people who runs the world, you are only going to get news that they want you to know. They will paint anther's man country's hero a tyrant, a dictator or a murderer and favor the next just to divide and conquer the people.
Henry Johnson Jr
Divide and conquer. That’s the global elite’s proven strategy when it comes to its treatment of Third World countries in Africa and indeed throughout the world. Or, to put it another way, order out of chaos is the global elite’s favored tactic. They engineer chaos by financing both sides of revolutions, movements and civil wars then create order by providing solutions to governments and citizens in these war-torn countries.
James Morcan (The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy)
88% of men impress to undress. 88% of women undress to impress.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
Anytime you see dichotomies that ignore the human experiment’s infinite nuances, you can be certain you are encountering the Archontic mind.
Sol Luckman (Cali the Destroyer)
When the going gets tough: the poor close their eyes, the rich open their wallets.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
You ever get gut feelings? Like you see something and just know?' Ty asked, feeling stupid but not caring. He felt Zane squeeze his hand. "First time I saw you, after I got over hating you, I knew, I knew we'd die together. I could just feel it deep down.' Zane exhaled heavily. 'Not today. And not tomorrow. And not for a long time to come, Ty Grady. You hear me? A hell of a long time.' Ty nodded jerkily... ...Several heartbeats of quiet passed before Zane spoke. 'First time I saw you, after i got over hating you, I knew,' he said echoing Ty's words, 'I knew I'd fall in love with you...I laughed at myself,' Zane continued, a hint of pleading in his voice, 'and then I denied it, and then I did everything I could to prove myself wrong, but it didn't work...Ty,' Zane's even, soothing tones finally broke on the short gasp of his name. 'I love you and I'm scared I'll lose you. Please don't leave me a lone in the dark.
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
it is the function of mass agitation to exploit all the grievances, hopes, aspirations, prejudices, fears, and ideals of all the special groups that make up our society, social, religious, economic, racial, political. Stir them up. Set one against the other. Divide and conquer. That’s the way to soften up a democracy.
J. Edgar Hoover (Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It)
He felt Ty's hand on his arm, rubbing comfortingly. Ty had been unusually tactile since the hospital, making up for Zane's lack of vision by touching him whenever he was able, as if he somehow knew how much it helped. Zane closed his eyes, grateful for it. He covered Ty's hand and squeezed gently. It was easy to think black thoughts when you were stuck in the dark, and Ty's touch helped him resist it.
Abigail Roux (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
The civilized man is technologically ahead of — intellectually behind — his time.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A civilized woman's demands: A man who will (1) make her come … sometimes; but (2) pay the bills … at all times.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
Marriage converts a player into a polygamist.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
A divided mind cannot conquer a united soul.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Divide and rule, weaken and conquer, love and enslave, these are three tenets of politics
Bangambiki Habyarimana (The Great Pearl of Wisdom)
Individualism may be the greatest boon to authoritarianism since the whip, and has helped prolong it well beyond its natural lifespan. Its message is: 'Yes, fight the system by all means-- we all hate it, don't we? But you must fight it alone. That's what a real warrior does. Groups just stifle your creativity. You must stand alone!' It reflects the oldest authoritarian strategy-- divide and conquer. The dissolution of a tyrannical system is possible only by a cooperative effort. Therefore, an ideology that sneers at cooperation, instills an allergic reaction to groups, and idealizes the lonely hero tilting at 'the system' serves to preserve that system, since it attaches our anti-authoritarian impulses to an approach that holds no possibility of success.
Philip Slater
In theory, say you did have thousands of people—no, thousands of systems—enraged at a hypothetical Galactic Empire in a faraway galaxy. But they’re all upset over local matters, over particular grievances, and they never get together on anything. So they get no strength in numbers, no strategic advantages from cooperation. They’re easy to divide and conquer. And worst of all, no common spirit ever develops.
John Jackson Miller (A New Dawn (Star Wars))
The rich ruling class has used tribalism, a primitive caveman instinct, to their advantage since the beginning of time. They use it to divide and conquer us. They drive wedges between us peasants and make us fight each other, so we won’t rise up against our rulers and fight them. You can observe the same old trick everywhere in America today: Red states and blue states are fighting. Christians and Muslims are fighting. Men and women are fighting. Baby Boomers and Millennials are fighting. Black people and white people are fighting. That doesn’t just happen all by itself. There are always voices instigating these fights.
Oliver Markus Malloy (How to Defeat the Trump Cult: Want to Save Democracy? Share This Book)
As we all know, as if forever exploiting or attempting to exploit each other were not enough, a group of sane human beings who have just reached the end of a war against a common enemy of theirs will sooner or later start or continue killing and/or fighting against each other.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
The less knowledgeable a nation is, the more 'miracles' the nation has.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The definition of 'Employment' by an employer, and, that by an employee, are seldom the same.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
If heaven really exists: then, technically, living is an activity that believers keep themselves busy with — while they wait for their death.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
What to wear: An employee chooses. How to dress: His employer chose.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
It washed through Zane, their bodies melding with the dance, and Zane was hopelessly, helplessly lost in him.
Madeleine Urban (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
Seriously?” Nick asked in honest surprise. “Like, with-the-heart love or with-the-dick love?” Ty snorted. “To be honest, it’s a little of both.
Madeleine Urban (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
Several heartbeats of quiet passed before Zane spoke. “First time I saw you, after I got over hating you, I knew,” he said, echoing Ty’s words, “I knew I’d fall in love with you.” Ty
Madeleine Urban (Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run, #4))
Women’s marches are a clever progressive divide and conquer strategy that not only turns women against men, but also turns women against each other in the guise of peace and solidarity. It is a brilliant tactic to employ media propaganda to make privileged women feel oppressed and then program them to think that vulgarity, exhibitionism and emasculation is empowering.
Dawn Perlmutter
It pursues a divide-and-conquer strategy: single versus married women, working women versus homemakers, middle-versus working-class. It manipulates a system of rewards and punishments, elevating women who follow its rules, isolating those who don’t. The backlash remarkets old myths about women as new facts and ignores all appeals to reason. Cornered, it denies its own existence, points an accusatory finger at feminism, and burrows deeper underground. Backlash
Susan Faludi (Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women)
Daughters of the Steppes had their three-year-olds playing these games to help them understand the concept of “divide, conquer, and destroy so that the next city or town over just gives us what we ask for.
G.A. Aiken (Feel the Burn (Dragon Kin, #8))
I look around as people take seats in our segregated sections—South Asian, African American, Arab, Southeast Asian. East Asian and Latinx, too, though they seem to be fewer in number. Soheil was right. Everything is deliberate. Divide and conquer. We may all be Muslims, but we still have our prejudices and racism. It’s simpler to play on our internalized “-isms” if you separate us and feed our fears—easier to make us “other” ourselves and do the Director’s work for him. Today, we’re all Muslims who’ve been forced here, but maybe it wouldn’t be hard to tap into our bigotry to turn us against one another, to turn our gaze away from where our anger should really be directed. Classic colonial conquest strategy. Just ask the British.
Samira Ahmed (Internment)
Yet today I realize that the most important thing in dividing tasks is the psychological effect of making the task bearable. The idea of small tasks always felt too abstract and not at all magical. But today it had a concrete effect on me. Suddenly, the idea of starting a task didn’t seem so heavy. The tasks just need to be small enough so that they feel conquerable. After that, starting is easy.
Gregg Krech (The Art of Taking Action: Lessons from Japanese Psychology)
As a simple exercise, the instructor showed us how to splice our own DNA into that of a bacterial cell. As the bacterial colony then divided and grew, our DNA would be copied ad infinitum, a basic form of cloning. Though of course we only used a tiny fragment of DNA and the results were crude, I distinctly remember thinking, “I shouldn’t be able to clone myself in a one-credit class.
Thor Hanson (The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History)
A home where a woman is abused is a small-scale model of much larger oppressive systems that work in remarkably similar ways. Many of the excuses an abusive man uses for verbally tearing his partner to shreds are the same ones that a power-mad boss uses for humiliating his or her employees. The abusive man’s ability to convince himself that his domination of you is for your own good is paralleled by the dictator who says, “People in this country are too primitive for democracy.” The divide-and-conquer strategies used by abusers are reminiscent of a corporate head who tries to break the labor union by giving certain groups of workers favored treatment. The making of an abuser is thus not necessarily restricted to the specific values his society teaches him about men’s relationships with women; without realizing it he may also apply attitudes and tactics from other forms of oppression that he has been exposed to as a boy or as a young adult and that he has learned to justify or even admire.
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
The whole world can be divided into those who write and those who do not write. Those who write represent despair, and those who read disapprove of it and believe that they have a superior wisdom – and yet, if they were able to write, they would write the same thing. Basically they are all equally despairing, but when one does not have the opportunity to become important with his despair, then it is hardly worth the trouble to despair and show it. Is this what it is to have conquered despair?
Søren Kierkegaard (Journals and Papers)
Calculus succeeds by breaking complicated problems down into simpler parts. That strategy, of course, is not unique to calculus. All good problem-solvers know that hard problems become easier when they’re split into chunks. The truly radical and distinctive move of calculus is that it takes this divide-and-conquer strategy to its utmost extreme — all the way out to infinity.
Steven H. Strogatz (Infinite Powers: The Story of Calculus - The Most Important Discovery in Mathematics)
He was also aware that while the public was dividing and conquering itself by focusing on banal, media-driven conflicts such as Neoconservatives versus Liberals, democracy versus terrorism and the West versus the rest, destructive covert outfits were slowly but surely growing stronger. The special agent also understood how groups like Nexus fostered and benefited from the climate of fear perpetuated in television broadcasts and newspaper headlines. As long as Americans were consumed by fear of evildoers, whether these be communists, terrorists, religious extremists or any other potential enemy, he knew they would never realize the greatest enemy of all was operating within – within the West, within America, within their own Government.
James Morcan (The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy, #2))
The model minority myth is often used to separate Asian Americans from other people of color by using their perceived socioeconomic and academic success and docile nature to compare and contrast with black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. This divide-and-conquer technique serves to redirect struggle against oppressive White Supremacy to competition between Asian Americans and other people of color. The real animosity between some Asian Americans and other people of color that has been manufactured by the model minority myth prevents Asian Americans and non-Asian people of color from recognizing and organizing around shared experiences of labor exploitation, lack of government representation, lack of pop culture representation, cultural appropriation, and much more.
Ijeoma Oluo (So You Want to Talk About Race)
Julian recognized that the strength of the orthodox Church rested to a great extent on the imperial discrimination in its favour. According to Ammianus, he tried to atomize the Church by ending the system: 'He ordered the priests of the different Christian sects, and their supporters to be admitted to the palace, and politely expressed his wish that, their quarrels being over, each might follow his own beliefs without hindrance or fear. He thought that freedom to argue their beliefs would simply deepen their differences, so that he would never be faced by a united common people. He found from experience that no wild beasts are as hostile to men, as Christians are to each other.'
Paul Johnson (A History of Christianity)
When apparent stability disintegrates, As it must— God is Change— People tend to give in To fear and depression, To need and greed. When no influence is strong enough To unify people They divide. They struggle, One against one, Group against group, For survival, position, power. They remember old hates and generate new ones, They create chaos and nurture it. They kill and kill and kill, Until they are exhausted and destroyed, Until they are conquered by outside forces, Or until one of them becomes A leader Most will follow, Or a tyrant Most fear.
Octavia E. Butler (Earthseed: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents)
As the seemingly well-intentioned French journalist spoke about Africa’s scarcity and its limited resources, Nine smiled to himself almost condescendingly. He considered such statements an absolute joke. Africa did not, nor did it ever have, limited resources. Nine knew something the journalist obviously didn’t: Africa was the most abundantly resourced continent on the planet bar none. Like the despots who ruled much of the region, and the foreign governments who propped them up, he knew there was more than enough wealth in Africa’s mineral resources such as gold, diamonds and oil – not to mention the land that nurtured these resources – for every man, woman and child. He thought it unfortunate Africa had never been able to compete on a level playing field. The continent’s almost unlimited resources were the very reason foreigners had meddled in African affairs for the past century or more. Nine knew it was Omega’s plan, and that of other greedy organizations, to siphon as much wealth as they could out of vulnerable Third World countries, especially in Africa. The same organizations had the formula down pat: they indirectly started civil wars in mineral-rich regions by providing arms to opposing local factions, and sometimes even helped to create famines, in order to destabilize African countries. This made the targeted countries highly vulnerable to international control. Once the outside organizations had divided and conquered, they were then able to plunder the country’s resources.
James Morcan (The Ninth Orphan (The Orphan Trilogy, #1))
Inequality has long been built into the core fabric of the American business model. Pitting Black workers against white workers against immigrant workers has been a particularly potent, tried-and-true tactic of employers to drive down all wages. But the cursory sketch laid out here does not even begin to discuss the very many oppressions—of people with disabilities, of gay people, of transgender people, of Native peoples, of elders, and more—that play an integral role in upholding the profitability of US capitalism. In fact, any place where bosses can hold down the wages of one section of the workforce not only ensures a cheaper labor pool among the oppressed demographic, but also, in the words of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, divides both in order to conquer each, so that everyone’s wages are pushed down.
Hadas Thier (A People's Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics)
The man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence, will respect the established powers and privileges even of individuals, and still more those of the great orders and societies, into which the state is divided. Though he should consider some of them as in some measure abusive, he will content himself with moderating what he often cannot annihilate without great violence. When he cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force; but will religiously observe what, by Cicero, is justly called the divine maxim of Plato, never to use violence to his country no more than to his parents. He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public arrangements to the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people; and will remedy, as well as he can, the inconveniencies which may flow from the want of those regulations which the people are averse to submit to. When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong; but like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will try to establish the best that the people can bear.
Adam Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments)
When a man seats before his eyes the bronze face of his helmet and steps off from the line of departure, he divides himself, as he divides his ‘ticket,’ in two parts. One part he leaves behind. That part which takes delight in his children, which lifts his voice in the chorus, which clasps his wife to him in the sweet darkness of their bed. “That half of him, the best part, a man sets aside and leaves behind. He banishes from his heart all feelings of tenderness and mercy, all compassion and kindness, all thought or concept of the enemy as a man, a human being like himself. He marches into battle bearing only the second portion of himself, the baser measure, that half which knows slaughter and butchery and turns the blind eye to quarter. He could not fight at all if he did not do this.” The men listened, silent and solemn. Leonidas at that time was fifty-five years old. He had fought in more than two score battles, since he was twenty; wounds as ancient as thirty years stood forth, lurid upon his shoulders and calves, on his neck and across his steel-colored beard. “Then this man returns, alive, out of the slaughter. He hears his name called and comes forward to take his ticket. He reclaims that part of himself which he had earlier set aside. “This is a holy moment. A sacramental moment. A moment in which a man feels the gods as close as his own breath. “What unknowable mercy has spared us this day? What clemency of the divine has turned the enemy’s spear one handbreadth from our throat and driven it fatally into the breast of the beloved comrade at our side? Why are we still here above the earth, we who are no better, no braver, who reverenced heaven no more than these our brothers whom the gods have dispatched to hell? “When a man joins the two pieces of his ticket and sees them weld in union together, he feels that part of him, the part that knows love and mercy and compassion, come flooding back over him. This is what unstrings his knees. “What else can a man feel at that moment than the most grave and profound thanksgiving to the gods who, for reasons unknowable, have spared his life this day? Tomorrow their whim may alter. Next week, next year. But this day the sun still shines upon him, he feels its warmth upon his shoulders, he beholds about him the faces of his comrades whom he loves and he rejoices in their deliverance and his own.” Leonidas paused now, in the center of the space left open for him by the troops. “I have ordered pursuit of the foe ceased. I have commanded an end to the slaughter of these whom today we called our enemies. Let them return to their homes. Let them embrace their wives and children. Let them, like us, weep tears of salvation and burn thank-offerings to the gods. “Let no one of us forget or misapprehend the reason we fought other Greeks here today. Not to conquer or enslave them, our brothers, but to make them allies against a greater enemy. By persuasion, we hoped. By coercion, in the event. But no matter, they are our allies now and we will treat them as such from this moment. “The Persian!
Steven Pressfield (Gates of Fire)