“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Thomas Jefferson 456

3rd President of the United States of America 1743–1826

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“It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

Concurring, Dennis v. United States, 339 U.S. 162, 184 (1950).
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“Attempts to secure an equal outcome always require unequal treatment of individuals.”

Ted Malloch (1952) American businessman

Source: Doing Virtuous Business (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 31.

“Votes go by number, not weight; nor can it be otherwise in assemblies of this kind, where nothing is more unequal than that equality which prevails in them.”
Numerantur enim sententiae, non ponderantur; nec aliud in publico consilio potest fieri, in quo nihil est tam inaequale quam aequalitas ipsa.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 12, 5.
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“Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

“The doctrine of equality! … But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice … "Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal" — that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, "never make the unequal equal".”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols

Expeditions of an Untimely Man, §48 Progress in my sense (Streifzüge eines Unzeitgemässen §48 Fortschritt in meinem Sinne). Chapter title also translated as: Skirmishes of an Untimely Man, Kaufmann/Hollingdale translation, and Raids of an Untimely Man, Richard Polt translation
Twilight of the Idols (1888)
Original: (de) Die Lehre von der Gleichheit! ... Aber es giebt gar kein giftigeres Gift: denn sie scheint von der Gerechtigkeit selbst gepredigt, während sie das Ende der Gerechtigkeit ist... "Den Gleichen Gleiches, den Ungleichen Ungleiches - das wäre die wahre Rede der Gerechtigkeit: und, was daraus folgt, Ungleiches niemals gleich machen."

“The spirit of our National Socialist idea has to overpower the spirit of liberalism and false democracy if there is to be a third Reich at all! Deeply rooted in organic life, we have realized that the false belief in the equality of man is the deadly threat with which liberalism destroys people and nation, culture and morals. violating the deepest levels of our being! We have to reject with fanatical zeal the frequent lie that people are basically equal and equal in regard to their influence in the state and their share of power! People are unequal, they are unequal from birth, become more unequal in life and are therefore to be valued unequally in their positions in society and in the state!”

Gregor Strasser (1892–1934) German politician, rival of Adolf Hitler inside the Nazi Psrty

Source: " Thoughts about the Tasks of the Future https://books.google.com/books?id=fG_oAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA87", by Gregor Strasser - (1926 June 15)

“The Procrustean bed is not a symbol of equality. It is no less inequality to have equality among unequals.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

Dissenting in New York v. United States, 331 U.S. 284, 353 (1947).
Judicial opinions

“But for those that are equal to have an unequal share and those that are alike an unlike share is contrary to nature, and nothing contrary to nature is noble.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book VII 3.5, 1325b
Politics

“He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Source: Political Treatise (1677), Ch. 9, Of Aristocracy, Continuation

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Whilst a paraphrase this is based off of Aristotle's writings as Aristotle stated "For instance, it is thought that justice is equality, and so it is, though not for everybody but only for those who are equals; and it is thought that inequality is just, for so indeed it is, though not for everybody, but for those who are unequal" in https://www.loebclassics.com/view/aristotle-politics/1932/pb_LCL264.211.xml Politics, III. V. 8.
Misattributed
This first appears in 1974 in an explanation of Aristotle's politics in Time magazine, before being condensed to an epigram as "Aristotle's Axiom" in Peter's People (1979) by Laurence J. Peter

“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.”

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