Statement quoted in the Boston Globe (25 October 1977)
Context: Even today, we are still accused of racism. This is a mistake. We know that all interracial groups in South Africa are relationships in which whites are superior, blacks inferior. So as a prelude whites must be made to realize that they are only human, not superior. Same with blacks. They must be made to realize that they are also human, not inferior.
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
White Racism and Black Consciousness
I Write What I Like (1978)
Variant: The greatest weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
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Steve Biko 12
anti-apartheid activist in South Africa 1946–1977Related quotes
“Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.”
Source: Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), p. 128
“the human mind… perhaps the most powerful weapon. second only to the "GUN"”
[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/813966376327086080]
Tweets by year, 2016
“Of all things love is the most potent.”
“Novelty, the most potent of all attractions, is also the most perishable.”
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving
“At Halicarnassus, the house of that most potent king Mausolus”
Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter VIII, Sec. 10
Context: At Halicarnassus, the house of that most potent king Mausolus, though decorated throughout with Proconnesian marble, has walls built of brick which are to this day of extraordinary strength, and are covered with stucco so highly polished that they seem to be as glistening as glass. That king did not use brick from poverty; for he was choke-full of revenues, being ruler of all Caria.
“Nothing seems to me the most potent thing in the world.”
Robert Barry, cited in: Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. New York, Praeger, 1973, p. 40.
“Legality and oppression are not unknown to run hand in hand.”
Roberts v. Jones; Willey v. Great Northern Railway Co. (1891), L. R. 2 Q. B. [1891], p. 203.
“Properly read, it is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
As quoted in Notes for a Memoir : On Isaac Asimov, Life, and Writing (2006) by Janet Jeppson Asimov, p. 58
General sources
Variant: Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
Context: If you suspect that my interest in the Bible is going to inspire me with sudden enthusiasm for Judaism and make me a convert of mountain‐moving fervor and that I shall suddenly grow long earlocks and learn Hebrew and go about denouncing the heathen — you little know the effect of the Bible on me. Properly read, it is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.