Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. II : The Fellow-Craft, p. 44
Context: From the political point of view there is but a single principle,— the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of one's self over one's self is called Liberty. Where two or several of these sovereignties associate, the State begins. But in this association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty parts with a certain portion of itself to form the common right. That portion is the same for all. There is equal contribution by all to the joint sovereignty. This identity of concession which each makes to all, is Equality. The common right is nothing more or less than the protection of all, pouring its rays on each. This protection of each by all, is Fraternity.
Liberty is the summit, Equality the base. Equality is not all vegetation on a level, a society of big spears of grass and stunted oaks, a neighborhood of jealousies, emasculating each other. It is, civilly, all aptitudes having equal opportunity; politically, all votes having equal weight; religiously, all consciences having equal rights.
“Equal wealth and equal opportunities of culture… have simply made us all members of one class.”
Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/lkbak10.txt (1888), Ch. 14.
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Edward Bellamy 58
American author and socialist 1850–1898Related quotes
Speech in the House of Commons (24 November 1976) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103146
Leader of the Opposition
Context: The word “equality” is often used, but, wisely, rarely defined. The moment one tries to define it, one gets into great difficulty. For example, it cannot mean equality of incomes or earnings; otherwise, we would not need more than one union. Indeed, we would not need one union. If we are to have opportunity, we cannot have equality, because the two are opposite. We may have equality of opportunity, but if the only opportunity is to be equal, it is not opportunity.
Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 167.
Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 197.
“Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens”
1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)
Context: Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.
2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)
As quoted in "Tech, Pirates Share Man of Year Honors; Jaycees Cite Carnegie Chief Dr. Stever, Give Clemente Sports, Lawrence Awards" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=5L4bAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XU8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7479%2C2960572 by Robert Johnson, in The Pittsburgh Press (Tuesday, January 24, 1967), p. 20
Other, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1967</big>
Diary (15 May 1878)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
Context: General education is the best preventive of the evils now most dreaded. In the civilized countries of the world, the question is how to distribute most generally and equally the property of the world. As a rule, where education is most general the distribution of property is most general.... As knowledge spreads, wealth spreads. To diffuse knowledge is to diffuse wealth. To give all an equal chance to acquire knowledge is the best and surest way to give all an equal chance to acquire property.
Dune Genesis (1980)
Context: In the beginning I was just as ready as anyone to fall into step, to seek out the guilty and to punish the sinners, even to become a leader. Nothing, I felt, would give me more gratification than riding the steed of yellow journalism into crusade, doing the book that would right the old wrongs.
Reevaluation raised haunting questions. I now believe that evolution, or deevolution, never ends short of death, that no society has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, that all humans are not created equal. In fact, I believe attempts to create some abstract equalization create a morass of injustices that rebound on the equalizers. Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability.
“Conservatives believe in equality of opportunity. Liberals believe in equality of outcome.”
Rocky Mountain News column, 2000