Need help finding a quote!

I can't recall the actual wording, but the idea was:

"people will suffer injustice/oppression as long as it is tolerable/bearable"

It is actually longer than my shortened version but the concept is the same.

I tried all variations in a search but never found it. I thought it would have been easier, as I think it is a fairly famous quote.



[edit on 30-6-2010 by Wolf321]

reply to post by Wolf321


Perhaps this one:

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them."

- Frederick Douglass

reply to post by schrodingers dog


Not the one I was looking for but it is a good one.

For some reason I think the source is either the founders, someone from an oppressive government or a political mastermind similar to Kissinger.

It's been eating at me all day.

reply to post by Wolf321




Not sure exactly what your looking for…

Could it be this?

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

- Martin Niemöller



- JC

reply to post by Joecroft


Still not it, but I am really appreciating the input. The quotes provided so far are quite poignant and are along the theme of the quote I am searching for. Thanks.

reply to post by Wolf321


Here are a couple I found on FinestQuotes.com

"There can be no really pervasive system of oppression, such as that in the United States, without the consent of the oppressed" - Rose F. Kennedy

or the same one that SDog gives but with a little more before and after:

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." - Frederick Douglass

reply to post by americandingbat


Still not it. Thanks for the good ones though.

either:

'People will suffer almost anything as long as it means they don't have to change.' - Deepak Chopra

or

'When the local population is impoverished and its ability to sustain itself drained away, the people will suffer even as the government must exact more from them'. - Sun Tzu



[edit on 7-7-2010 by CitizenNum287119327]

reply to post by CitizenNum287119327


Still not it. I'm surprised that it hasn't found its way here yet. I feel certain it exists and I am not just imagining it.

reply to post by Wolf321


Could this be the one you are looking for?

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." ~ Edmund Burke

Well, I finally found it. It was right under my nose the whole time. I feel pretty stupid for not realizing it. The quote I was looking for is from the Declaration of Independence. It took listening to the Declaration Medley by the Fifth Dimension to catch it. The bold section is the exact part I was looking for, but I will include a bit more.

all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.