
Paragraph 1 (p. 7 of Welcome to the Monkey House)
Welcome to the Monkey House (1968), "Harrison Bergeron" (1961)
The Book of Merlyn (1977)
Paragraph 1 (p. 7 of Welcome to the Monkey House)
Welcome to the Monkey House (1968), "Harrison Bergeron" (1961)
Speech to the annual meeting of the Union of Girls' Schools (27 October 1927), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), pp. 150-151.
1927
Context: Your work in social service, whatever form it may take, requires exactly those two things that my work requires... patience and faith in human worth. Those are the real foundations of democracy, not equality in the sense in which that word is so often used. We are not all equal, and never shall be; the true postulate of democracy is not equality but the faith that every man and woman is worth while.
“In securing the equal rights of these we shall secure the equal rights of all.”
Source: Social Problems (1883), Ch. 21 : Conclusion
Context: Those who are most to be considered, those for whose help the struggle must be made, if labor is to be enfranchised, and social justice won, are those least able to help or struggle for themselves, those who have no advantage of property or skill or intelligence, — the men and women who are at the very bottom of the social scale. In securing the equal rights of these we shall secure the equal rights of all.
Hence it is, as Mazzini said, that it is around the standard of duty rather than around the standard of self-interest that men must rally to win the rights of man. And herein may we see the deep philosophy of Him who bade men love their neighbors as themselves.
In that spirit, and in no other, is the power to solve social problems and carry civilization onward.
Sketches of Border Adventures, 1842
“We came equals into this world, and equals shall we go out of it.”
Remarks on Annual Elections (1775)
Variant: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Source: Animal Farm
“No one
Shall hunger: Man shall spend equally.
Our goal which we compel: Man shall be man.”
"Not Palaces" (l. 23–25)
“You are all born free and equal, and free you shall all die.”
“Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.”
Address before the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi, India, April 5, 1956, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 131
1950s, Address before the Indian Council on World Affairs (1956)