Quotes about equality
page 14

Richard Dawkins photo
Henri de Saint-Simon photo

“I have divided [the different sections of mankind] into three classes. The first, to which you and I have the honour to belong, marches under the banner of the progress of the human mind. It is composed of scientists, artists and all those who hold liberal ideas. On the banner of the second is written 'No innovation!' All proprietors who do not belong in the first category are part of the second. The third class, which rallies round the slogan of 'Equality' is made up of the rest of the people.”

Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) French early socialist theorist

[J]e me propose en m'adressant à différentes fractions de l'humanité, que je divise en trois classes: la première, celle à laquelle vous et moi avons l'honneur d'appartenir, marche sous l'étendard des progrès de l'esprit humain; elle marche sous l'étendard des progrès de l'esprit humain; elle est composée des savants, des artistes et de tous les hommes qui ont des idées libérales. Sur la bannière de la seconde il est écrit: point d'innovation; tous les propriétaires qui n'entrent point dans la première sont attachés à la seconde. La troisième, qui se rallie au mot égalité, renferme le surplus de l'humanité.
Oeuvres choisies: précédées d'un essai sur sa doctrine (1839), p. 15

“We do not have monarchies by divine right, we do not lack influential and wealthy clergy, we do not want rich families between the crown and the people. What we are looking for is equal rights for the people, and uniform distribution of goods. It is time for democratizing the right to property.”

Francisco Luís Gomes (1829–1869) Indo-Portuguese physician, writer, historian, economist, political scientist and MP in the Portuguese parli…

A Liberdade da Terra e a Economia Rural da India Portuguesa (1862), Introduction. Quoted by Teotonio R. de Souza in Essays in Goan history (1989), p. 137
A Liberdade da Terra e a Economia Rural da India Portuguesa (1862)

Susan Faludi photo
Bret Easton Ellis photo
Pierre Louis Maupertuis photo
Louis Pasteur photo

“Where are the real sources of human dignity, freedom and modern democracy, if not in the concept of infinity to which all men are equal?”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

Discours de réception de Louis Pasteur (1882)
Original: Où sont les vraies sources de la dignité humaine, de la liberté et de la démocratie moderne, sinon dans la notion de l’infini devant laquelle tous les hommes sont égaux?

Adélard Godbout photo

“Did not Mister Godbout himself – I will surprise many, such a bad historical reputation was made about him – propose in 1948, in all letters, the holding of a referendum to reach […], let us get ready, "an equal to equal agreement between Quebec and Canada?"”

Adélard Godbout (1892–1956) Canadian politician

It was 32 years ago...
By René Lévesque, March 4, 1980, on the day the 1980 referendum question was presented at the National Assembly of Quebec.
Reference: René Lévesque, Mot à Mot, Les Éditions internationales Alain Stanké, 1997.
Original: Monsieur Godbout lui-même – je vais en surprendre plusieurs, on lui a fait tellement une mauvaise réputation historiquement – ne proposait-il pas en 1948, et en toutes lettres, la tenue d'un référendum pour en arriver [...], tenons-nous bien, "à une entente d'égal à égal entre le Québec et le Canada"? Il y a 32 ans de cela...

Richard Dawkins photo
James Madison photo

“American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced interdiction in force against the criminal conduct will doubtless be felt by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

State of the Union address (1810) https://books.google.com/books?id=PsFnB7FA11YC&pg=PA200&dq=%22Rendered+impossible+by+the+prejudices+of+the+whites%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAWoVChMI8uuN6dbUxwIVBD0-Ch1EqwFq#v=onepage&q=%22Rendered%20impossible%20by%20the%20prejudices%20of%20the%20whites%22&f=false
1810s

Sathya Sai Baba photo
Jack Layton photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
John R. Commons photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“I don't have prejudice, I hate everyone equally.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Attributed in The Mammoth Book of Jokes (2006) edited by Geoff Tibbals; no earlier citation yet located.
Disputed

Giordano Bruno photo
Neil Patrick Harris photo
Ken Wilber photo
Warren Farrell photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“People are scarcely aware that it is a slavery they are creating; they forget this in their zeal to make people free by overthrowing dominions. They are scarcely aware that it is slavery; how could it be possible to be a slave in relation to equals?”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Søren Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p. 327
1840s, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1847)

Richard Leakey photo
Stéphane Mallarmé photo

“The poetic act consists in suddenly seeing that an idea splits into a number of motives of equal value and in grouping them; they rhyme.”

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898) French Symbolist poet

L'acte poétique consiste à voir soudain qu'une idée se fractionne en un nombre de motifs égaux par valeur et à les grouper; ils riment.
"Crise de Vers", La Revue Blanche (September 1895) as translated in Mallarmé : The Poet and his Circle ([1999] 2005) by Rosemary Lloyd, p. 231.
Observations

William F. Buckley Jr. photo
Woody Allen photo

“To me there's no real difference between a fortune teller or a fortune cookie and any of the organized religions. They're all equally valid or invalid, really. And equally helpful.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

New York Times interview (2010) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/movies/15woody.html?_r=1&ref=arts#.

John Maynard Keynes photo
Geert Wilders photo

“There is no equality between our culture and the retarded Islamic culture. Look at their views on homosexuality or women.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

The Guardian 'I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam' http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/17/netherlands.islam (17 February 2008)
2000s

Derek Jarman photo
Michele Bachmann photo
Joel Mokyr photo
Gideon Levy photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Albert Camus photo
Roderick Long photo
William Edward Hartpole Lecky photo
John Heywood photo

“Let the world slide, let the world go;
A fig for care, and a fig for woe!
If I can't pay, why I can owe,
And death makes equal the high and low.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Be Merry Friends; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Carl Menger photo
Madison Grant photo
Margaret Sanger photo

“Birth control is the first important step woman must take toward the goal of her freedom. It is the first step she must take to be man’s equal. It is the first step they must both take toward human emancipation.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

"Morality and Birth Control", February-March, 1918, pp. 11,14.
Birth Control Review, 1918-32

Naomi Wolf photo
Chris Anderson photo

“Communist writers likewise maintain that the Judaic-Christian code of ethics is "class" morality. By this they mean that the Ten Commandments and the ethics of Christianity were created to protect private property and the property class. To show the lengths to which Communist writers have gone to defend this view we will mention several of their favorite interpretations of the Ten Commandments. They believe that "Honor thy Father and thy Mother" was created by the early Hebrews to emphasize to their children the fact that they were the private property of their parents. "Thou shalt not kill" was attributed to the belief of the dominant class that their bodies were private property and therefore they should be protected along with other property rights. "Thou shalt not commit adultery" and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" were said to have been created to implement the idea that a husband was the master of the home and the wife was strictly private property belonging to him. This last line of reasoning led to some catastrophic consequences when the Communists came into power in Russia. In their anxiety to make women "equal with men" and prevent them from becoming private property, they degraded womankind to the lowest and most primitive level. Some Communist leaders advocated complete libertinism and promiscuity to replace marriage and the family.”

The Naked Communist (1958)

Markandey Katju photo
Samuel Vince photo

“I have lately spent some Thoughts relative to the Nature of Light, whether it be subject to the common Laws of Motion. In this particular Newton seems to contradict himself. For in his Principia Sect. 14th he applies the common Laws of Motion to account for Reflection and Refraction, as he does also in one Part of his Optics where he proves the Sine of Incid. to Sine Refr, in a given in a given Ratio. But in another Part he says, “nothing more is requisite for producing all the Variety of Colours and Degrees of Refrangibility than that the Rays of Light be Bodies of different Sizes, the least of which may make Violet, and the Greatest the Red"; this manifestly is not consistent with the Theory of Motion applied to Bodies, where the Magnitude of the Bodies is of no Consequence. Now it is evident that if the common Theory of Motion can be applied to Light, the Red Light must have had the greatest Velocity before Incidence, as it suffers the least Deviation, for if the Vels of all the Difft colour'd Light were equal before Incidence, they must by Newton's Principia Sect. Sect. 8. Prop. 1. have continued equal after, and therefore must have suffered the same Deviation. The Determination of this Point seems to be of considerable Importance, as we so often apply the Theory of Motion to Light.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

As quoted in: Russell McCormmach (2011) Weighing the World: The Reverend John Michell of Thornhill. p. 193

Mahendra Chaudhry photo

“The rule of law must apply equally to everyone, irrespective of status in society or class divisions it is this equal application that is the bulwark of modern democracies.”

Mahendra Chaudhry (1942) Fijian politician

Reaction to Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's address to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Nadi, 31 August 2005

Oliver Cowdery photo
Wang Ju-hsuan photo

“Now I know the public's perception is equally important and I am willing to hold myself to the highest moral standards.”

Wang Ju-hsuan (1961) Taiwanese politician

Wang Ju-hsuan (2015) cited in " Wang vows to move out of controversial housing http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2015/11/27/2003633429" on Taipei Times, 27 November 2015.

Tomáš Baťa photo
James A. Garfield photo
Susan Faludi photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
William Blum photo
Pete Doherty photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“What if the equality between us human being, in which we completely resemble one another, were that none of us really thinks about his being loved? Preface P. 166”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1850s, Two Discourses at Friday Communion (August 1851)

Elizabeth Gaskell photo
Joseph Beuys photo
Antonio Negri photo
George W. Bush photo

“Any suggestion that a segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong. Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals, and the founding ideals of our nation, and in fact the founding ideals of the political party I represent, was and remains today the equal dignity and equal rights of every American.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Regarding comments made by Trent Lott (12 December 2002), as quoted in "Lott's Remarks on Segregation 'Wrong and Offensive'" https://web.archive.org/web/20150921020713/http://www.irishtimes.com/news/lott-remarks-on-segregation-wrong-and-offensive-1.1107399 (13 December 2002), The Irish Times
2000s, 2002

Calvin Coolidge photo
Helen Clark photo

“Girls can do anything. We do do anything and we expect to be treated as equals.”

Helen Clark (1950) 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand

Quoted in David Barber, Helen Clark, new chief of UN Development Programme," https://archive.is/20131125142737/www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1467092.php/PROFILE_Helen_Clark_new_chief_of_UN_Development_Programme_"PROFILE: Asia-Pacific News (26 March 2006)

Kunti photo
Margaret Chase Smith photo

“As men, we are all equal in the presence of death.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 1
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Michael Bloomberg photo
Philip Schaff photo

“In the progress of the work he founded a Collegium Biblieum, or Bible club, consisting of his colleagues Melanchthon, Bugenhagen (Pommer), Cruciger, Justus Jonas, and Aurogallus. They met once a week in his house, several hours before supper. Deacon Georg Rörer (Rorarius), the first clergyman ordained by Luther, and his proof-reader, was also present; occasionally foreign scholars were admitted; and Jewish rabbis were freely consulted. Each member of the company contributed to the work from his special knowledge and preparation. Melanchthon brought with him the Greek Bible, Cruciger the Hebrew and Chaldee, Bugenhagen the Vulgate, others the old commentators; Luther had always with him the Latin and the German versions besides the Hebrew. Sometimes they scarcely mastered three lines of the Book of Job in four days, and hunted two, three, and four weeks for a single word. No record exists of the discussions of this remarkable company, but Mathesius says that "wonderfully beautiful and instructive speeches were made."
At last the whole Bible, including the Apocrypha as "books not equal to the Holy Scriptures, yet useful and good to read," was completed in 1534, and printed with numerous woodcuts.
In the mean time the New Testament had appeared in sixteen or seventeen editions, and in over fifty reprints.
Luther complained of the many errors in these irresponsible editions.
He never ceased to amend his translation. Besides correcting errors, he improved the uncouth and confused orthography, fixed the inflections, purged the vocabulary of obscure and ignoble words, and made the whole more symmetrical and melodious.
He prepared five original editions, or recensions, of his whole Bible, the last in 1545, a year before his death.
The edition of 1546 was prepared by his friend Rörer, and contains a large number of alterations, which he traced to Luther himself. Some of them are real improvements, e. g., Die Liebe höret nimmer auf, for, Die Liebe wird nicht müde (1 Cor. 13:8). The charge that he made the changes in the interest of Philippism (Melanchthonianism), seems to be unfounded.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's Bible club

C. Rajagopalachari photo
Chanakya photo
Richard Feynman photo
Harold Wilson photo
Stephen A. Douglas photo

“Lincoln maintains there that the Declaration of Independence asserts that the negro is equal to the white man, and that under Divine law, and if he believes so it was rational for him to advocate negro citizenship, which, when allowed, puts the negro on an equality under the law. I say to you in all frankness, gentlemen, that in my opinion a negro is not a citizen, cannot be, and ought not to be, under the Constitution of the United States. I will not even qualify my opinion to meet the declaration of one of the Judges of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, “that a negro descended from African parents, who was imported into this country as a slave is not a citizen, and cannot be.” I say that this Government was established on the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and never should be administered by any except white men. I declare that a negro ought not to be a citizen, whether his parents were imported into this country as slaves or not, or whether or not he was born here. It does not depend upon the place a negro’s parents were born, or whether they were slaves or not, but upon the fact that he is a negro, belonging to a race incapable of self-government, and for that reason ought not to be on an equality with white men.”

Stephen A. Douglas (1813–1861) American politician

Fourth Lincoln-Douglass Debate http://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate4.htm (September 1858)
1850s

Douglas Coupland photo

“Technology does not always equal progress.”

Life After God (1994)

Robert Owen photo
Tony Abbott photo

“Cultures are not all equal. We should be ready to proclaim the clear superiority of our culture to one that justifies killing people in the name of God.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

2015, The religion of Islam must reform (December 9, 2015)

Jayant Narlikar photo
David Lloyd George photo

“What has caused confusion and misunderstanding about his Hinduism is the concept of sarva-dharma-samabhAva (equal regard for all religions) which he had developed after deep reflection. Christian and Muslim missionaries have interpreted it to mean that a Hindu can go aver to Christianity or Islam without suffering any spiritual loss. They are also using it as a shield against every critique of their closed and aggressive creeds. The new rulers of India, on the other hand, cite it in order to prop up the Nehruvian version of Secularism which is only a euphemism for anti-Hindu animus shared in common by Christians, Muslims, Marxists and those who are Hindus only by accident of birth. For Gandhiji, however, sarva-dharma-samabhAva was only a restatement of the age-old Hindu tradition of tolerance in matters of belief. Hinduism has always adjudged a man’s faith in terms of his AdhAra (receptivity) and adhikAra (aptitude). It has never prescribed a uniform system of belief or behavior for everyone because, according to it, different persons are in different stages of spiritual development and need different prescriptions for further progress. Everyone, says Hinduism, should be left alone to work out one’s own salvation through one’s own inner seeking and evolution. Any imposition of belief or behaviour from the outside is, therefore, a mechanical exercise which can only do injury to one’s spiritual growth. Preaching to those who have not invited it is nothing short of aggression born out of self-righteousness. That is why Gandhiji took a firm and uncompromising stand against proselytisation by preaching and gave no quarters to the Christian mission’s mercenary methods of spreading the gospel.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

Charles Darwin photo

“The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.”

Compare: "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr Darwin has called 'natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.' ", Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology (1864) volume 1, part III: "The Evolution of Life", chapter XII, "Indirect Equilibration", pages 444-445.
Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter III: "Struggle For Existence", page 72 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=101&itemID=F387&viewtype=image, in the fifth (1869) and sixth (1872) editions

Eliezer Yudkowsky photo

“The strength of a theory is not what it allows, but what it prohibits; if you can invent an equally persuasive explanation for any outcome, you have zero knowledge.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

An Alien God http://lesswrong.com/lw/kr/an_alien_god/ (November 2007)

George Ballard Mathews photo
Chelsea Manning photo
Owen Lovejoy photo

“We thank thee for the wisdom of the fathers in the formation of this government, and for the assistance thou didst render them in arriving at the great principles relating to the equality of man. We thank thee for the glorious declaration.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://web.archive.org/web/20160319091004/https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA394#v=onepage&q&f=false (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 394
1860s, Prayer (November 1863)

Courtney Love photo

“I wore a dress that was so restricting and shoes that were five inches high, I could barely stage-dive. Then I got the best write-ups, for being feminine, I guess. I couldn’t move well and I was restrained, which equals great review. That’s pretty horrid.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

On her attire during live performances, Billboard https://books.google.com/books?id=gA0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA135&dq=I+wore+a+dress+that+was+so+restricting+and+shoes+that+were+five+inches+high,+I+could+barely+stage-dive,+Then+I+got+the+best+write-ups,+for+being+feminine,+I+guess.+I+couldn’t+move+well+and+I+was+restrained,+which+equals+great+review.+That’s+pretty+horrid+Read+more+at+http://www.nme.com/list/courtney-love-30-of-her-most-candid-quotes-1309%233eCzLehAzLfAYAW2.99&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHoYHrgbfSAhUDOSYKHeg-DR8Q6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=I%20wore%20a%20dress%20that%20was%20so%20restricting%20and%20shoes%20that%20were%20five%20inches%20high%2C%20I%20could%20barely%20stage-dive%2C%20Then%20I%20got%20the%20best%20write-ups%2C%20for%20being%20feminine%2C%20I%20guess.%20I%20couldn’t%20move%20well%20and%20I%20was%20restrained%2C%20which%20equals%20great%20review.%20That’s%20pretty%20horrid%20Read%20more%20at%20http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nme.com%2Flist%2Fcourtney-love-30-of-her-most-candid-quotes-1309%233eCzLehAzLfAYAW2.99&f=false (30 March 1996)
1996–2005

Bouck White photo
André Maurois photo

“The best way to honor friends who have died is to treat our living ones with equal affection.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Happiness

Harry V. Jaffa photo
Cora L. V. Scott photo
Richard Francis Burton photo

“"Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!" Angels and Fools have equal claim
To do what Nature bids them do, sans hope of praise, sans fear of blame!”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)