Prosperity or egalitarianism—you have to choose. I favor freedom—you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion.
—Mario Vargas Llosa (1936–2025) Peruvian Novelist, Politician, Nobel Laureate
The equality of conditions is more complete in the Christian countries of the present day, than it has been, at any time, or in any part of the world.—Its gradual development is a providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a divine decree; it is universal, it is durable, and it constantly eludes all human interference; and all events, as well as all men, contribute to its progress.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
The desire to be right usually trumps the desire for truth.
—Marty Nemko (b.1950) American Career Coach
‘Fairness’ is one of the great mantras of the left. Since everyone has his own definition of fairness, that word is a blank check for the expansion of government power. What fairness means in practice is that third parties—busybodies—can prevent mutual accommodations by others.
—Thomas Sowell (b.1930) American Conservative Economist, Political Commentator
Men are by nature unequal.—It is rain, therefore, to treat them as if they were equal.
—James Anthony Froude (1818–94) British Historian, Novelist, Biographer, Editor
The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
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, Satirist, Short Story Writer
Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
—Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American Labor Leader, Socialist
It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them, high or lowly, and ordered their estate.
—Cecil Frances Alexander (1818–95) Anglo-Irish Children’s Hymn Writer, Poet
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
However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
Perfect love cannot be without equality.
—Scottish Proverb
The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid. There is no big man who has not felt small. Some men never feel small; but these are the few men who are.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
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 (1924–2024) 39th US President, Humanitarian
Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist
Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.
—Barry Goldwater (1909–98) American Politician, Businessperson, Representative
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
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: That you are dreadfully like other people.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
By the law of God, given by him to humanity, all men are free, are brothers, and are equals.
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) Italian Patriot, Political Leader
One murder made a villain,
Millions a hero.
Princes were privileg’d
To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime.
Ah! why will kings forget that they are men,
And men that they are brethren?
—Beilby Porteus (1731–1809) Anglican Bishop of London
You cannot have all chiefs; you gotta have Indians too.
—U.S. Proverb
Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
Nothing can be unconditional: consequently nothing can be free.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
There is a relationship between cartooning and people like Miro and Picasso which may not be understood by the cartoonist, but it definitely is related even in the early Disney.
—Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) American Comic-Style Artist
Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.
—William C. Durant (1861–1947) American Industrialist
By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.
—Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) Italian Catholic Priest, Philosopher, Theologian
A friend to everybody and to nobody is the same thing.
—Spanish Proverb
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
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