Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
All the people like us are We, And everyone else is They. And They live over the sea, While We live over the way. But-would you believe it?-They look upon We As only a sort of They.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane individual has ever given his assent.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
If you deny any affinity with another person or kind of person, if you declare it to be wholly different from yourself
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b.1929) American Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer
It is my mission to help in the breaking down of classes, and to make all men feel as if they were brethren of the same family, sharing the same rights, the same capabilities, and the same responsibilities. While my hand can hold a pen, I will use it to this end; and while my brain can earn a dollar, I will devote it to this end.
—Lydia Maria Child (1802–80) American Abolitionist, Writer
Inferiors revolt in order that they be equal, and equals that they be superior.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Before God we are all equally wise and equally foolish.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
There is no good in living in a society where you are merely the equal of everybody else. The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English Novelist
Death and the cross are the two great levellers; kings and their subjects, masters and slaves, find a common level in two places—at the foot of the cross, and in the silence of the grave.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.
—Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) French Philosopher, Writer, Feminist
There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behooves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.
—Unknown
When the political power of the clergy was founded and began to exert itself, and they opened their ranks to all classes, to the poor and the rich, the villain and the lord, equality penetrated into the government through the church and the being who as a serf must have vegetated in perpetual bondage, took his place, as a priest, in the midst of nobles, and not unfrequently above the head of kings.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
An earthly kingdom cannot exist without inequality of persons. Some must be free, some serfs, some rulers, some subjects.
—Martin Luther (1483–1546) German Protestant Theologian
The sole equality on earth is death.
—Philip James Bailey (1816–1902) English Poet
Nothing can be unconditional: consequently nothing can be free.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal…
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
We accept and welcome… as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment; the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few; and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.
—Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) Scottish-American Industrialist
You cannot have all chiefs; you gotta have Indians too.
—U.S. Proverb
The doctrine of equality! There exists no more poisonous poison: for it seems to be preached by justice itself, while it is the end of justice.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. Theyll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chinese Statesman
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
Love means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
It is to law alone that men owe justice and liberty. It is this salutary organ, of the will of all which establishes in civil rights the natural equality between men. It is this celestial voice which dictates to each citizen the precepts of public reason, and teaches him to act according to the rules of his own judgment and not to behave inconsistently with himself. It is with this voice alone that political leaders should speak when. they command.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people, but the great would always be those who had done great things, and never the idiots whose mothers had spoiled them and whose fathers had left them a hundred thousand a year; and the little would be persons of small minds and mean characters, and not poor persons who had never had a chance. That is why idiots are always in favor of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favor of equality.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Equality is what does not exist among mortals.
—e. e. cummings (1894–1962) American Poet, Writer, Painter
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
They who say all men are equal speak an undoubted truth, if they mean that all have an equal right to liberty, to their property, and to their protection of the laws.—But they are mistaken if they think men are equal in their station and employments, since they are not so by their talents.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
The longer we live, the more we find we are like other persons.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
In the state of nature…all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic
Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense, and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable.
—Unknown
Where equality is undisputed, so also is subordination.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
The hole and the patch should be commensurate.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Perfect love cannot be without equality.
—Scottish Proverb
It is well to know something of the manners of various peoples, in order more sanely to judge our own, and that we do not think that everything against our modes is ridiculous, and against reason, as those who have seen nothing are accustomed to think.
—Rene Descartes (1596–1650) French Mathematician, Philosopher
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy — I don’t disparage envy but I don’t accept it as legitimately my master.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author
The first step in providing economic equality for women is to ensure a stable economy in which every person who wants to work can work.
—Jimmy Carter (b.1924) American Head of State, Military Leader
No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
The principle of liberty and equality, if coupled with mere selfishness, will make men only devils, each trying to be independent that he may fight only for his own interest.—And here is the need of religion and its power, to bring in the principle of benevolence and love to men.
—John Randolph (1773–1833) American Politician
Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
The desire to be right usually trumps the desire for truth.
—Marty Nemko (b.1950) American Career Coach
It’s an odd thing about this universe that, though we all disagree with each other, we are all of us always in the right.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold…. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
A friend to everybody and to nobody is the same thing.
—Spanish Proverb