Definition of Oppressive

Oppressive

Unreasonably burdensome; unjustly severe, rigorous, or harsh; as, oppressive taxes; oppressive exactions of service; an oppressive game law.

Using oppression; tyrannical; as, oppressive authority or commands.

Heavy; overpowering; hard to be borne; as, oppressive grief or woe.

Related Definitions:

An, As, Authority, Be, Borne, Burdensome, Game, Grief, Hard, Harsh, Heavy, Law, Of, Oppression, Oppressive, Or, Overpowering, Rigorous, Service, Severe, To, Tyrannical, Using, Woe

Oppressive Quotations

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.
Confucius

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
C. S. Lewis

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
Thomas Jefferson

Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic.
James Madison

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
Edmund Burke

Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.
Herbert Spencer

We need to work on the world so it will not be so oppressive.
James Hillman

When they talk about family values, it's in a repressive way, as if our American tradition were only the Puritan tradition or the 19th century oppressive tradition. The Christian tradition.
James Hillman

I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.
Oriana Fallaci

We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels.
Henry A. Wallace

There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God.
Ryszard Kapuscinski

In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is complicated.
Ryszard Kapuscinski

The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought.
Peter Ustinov

Life ceases to be so oppressive: we are free to give our own lives meaning and purpose, free to redeem our suffering by making something of it.
Walter Kaufmann

Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.
Roland Barthes

My office has been one of the most scrupulous in the country with regard to the protection of individual rights. I've been on record for years in law journals and books as championing the rights of the individual against the oppressive power of the state.
Jim Garrison

People with lots of doubts sometimes find life more oppressive and exhausting than others, but they're more energetic - they aren't robots.
Antonio Tabucchi

I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision... is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive.
Barbara Deming

Women are the victims of this patriarchal culture, but they are also its carriers. Let us keep in mind that every oppressive man was raised in the confines of his mother's home.
Shirin Ebadi

The Government of the absolute majority instead of the Government of the people is but the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised.
John C. Calhoun

Our constancy, same might call it our madness, was necessary to wear down the oppressive forces of the old democracy which, in Spain, was a hundred years behind the times.
Frederica Montseny

The burden of the past is only, I think, oppressive when you've got to go on the experience of the avant garde.
Jonathan Miller

Every tax or rate, forcibly taken from an unwilling person, is immoral and oppressive.
Auberon Herbert

When a system of oppression has become institutionalized it is unnecessary for individuals to be oppressive.
Florynce R. Kennedy

Those religions that are oppressive to women are also against democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression.
Taslima Nasrin

The ability of Americans to toss off oppressive characters is the most rewarding aspect, to me, of U.S. history.
Norman Corwin

Our enormous surplus revenues are illogical and oppressive.
John Griffin Carlisle

More Oppressive Quotations

Oppressive Translations

oppressive in French is vexatoire
oppressive in Italian is premente
oppressive in Spanish is opresor
oppressive in Swedish is tryckande

Share with your Friends

Everyone likes a good quote - don't forget to share.