Quotes about inequality
A collection of quotes on the topic of inequality, equal, equality, people.
Quotes about inequality

Philosophy degree (1783), in: The Secret School of Wisdom: The Authentic Rituals and Doctrinces of the Illuminati, ed. by Josef Wäges and Reinhard Markner, Lewis Masonic 2015, p. 364.
Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter II, Section 11, pg. 60
is the closest to the truth. http://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/firestone-shulamith/dialectic-sex.htm
The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

Part of the speech to the students of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Summer 2010)

"Joaquin Phoenix's Oscars speech in full: 'We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby'" https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/10/joaquin-phoenixs-oscars-speech-in-full, The Guardian (February 10, 2020).
Giannina Braschi, in United States of Banana, 2011

Source: Movie The Two Popes, Jonathan Pryce as Pope Francis

2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)

Capital and the State (1924)

Oscar A. Romero, The Violence of Love http://data.plough.com/ebooks/ViolenceOfLove.pdf (1977).

Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), p. 37.

Statement in conversation (7 January 1942)
Disputed, Hitler's Table Talks (1941-1944) (published 1953)

2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)

Tous les hommes seraient donc nécessairement égaux, s’ils étaient sans besoins. La misère attachée à notre espèce subordonne un homme à un autre homme: ce n’est pas l’inégalité qui est un malheur réel, c’est la dépendance.
"Equality" (1764)
Citas, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

Source: Income Distribution (1975), p. 61; Cited in: Acemoglu (2000, p. 31)

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."

“Englands Schuld,” Illustrierter Beobachter, Sondernummer, p. 14. The article is not dated, but is from the early months of the war, likely late fall of 1939. Joseph Goebbels’ speech in English is titled “England's Guilt.” http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb47.htm
1930s

Said in criticism of the government of Néstor Kirchner, former President of Argentina, in 2009, as quoted in "Pope Francis: the humble pontiff with practical approach to poverty" by Mark Rice-Oxley, in The Guardian (13 March 2013) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/13/jorge-mario-bergoglio-pope-poverty
2010s

"The Brazil of North America" https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/the-brazil-of-north-america/ (July 18, 2014), Chronicles
2010s

Anarchism or Socialism (1906)

"My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It" http://www.mtwain.com/My_First_Lie,_And_How_I_Got_Out_Of_It/0.html, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900)

2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)

Section 53
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)

"Science AMA Series: Stephen Hawking AMA Answers!", reddit.com (8 October 2015) https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/3nyn5i/science_ama_series_stephen_hawking_ama_answers/cvsdmkv/; also quoted in "Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots" Huffington Post (8 October 2015) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-hawking-capitalism-robots_us_5616c20ce4b0dbb8000d9f15

2015, Remarks at Panama Civil Society Forum (April 2015)

Shri K. R. Narayanan President of India in Conversation with N. Ram on Doordarshan and All India Radio

During an after-dinner discussion in Munich https://books.google.com/books?id=2zxfyeUHKEAC&pg=PA69 (1933), regarding the American Civil War
Disputed, The Testament of Adolf Hitler (1945)
Context: This is the last disgusting death-rattle of a corrupt and outworn system which is a blot on the history of this people. Since the civil war, in which the southern states were conquered, against all historical logic and sound sense, the American people have been in a condition of political and popular decay. In that war, it was not the Southern States, but the American people themselves who were conquered. In this spurious blossoming of economic progress and power politics, America has ever since been drawn deeper into the mire of progressive self-destruction. The beginnings of a great new social order based on the principle of slavery and inequality were destroyed by that war, and with them also the embryo of a future truly great America that would not have been ruled by a corrupt caste of tradesmen, but by a real Herren-class that would have swept away all the falsities of liberty and equality.

“There are practical consequences to rising inequality and reduced mobility.”
2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)
Context: So let me repeat: The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe. And it is not simply a moral claim that I’m making here. There are practical consequences to rising inequality and reduced mobility. For one thing, these trends are bad for our economy. One study finds that growth is more fragile and recessions are more frequent in countries with greater inequality. And that makes sense. When families have less to spend, that means businesses have fewer customers, and households rack up greater mortgage and credit card debt; meanwhile, concentrated wealth at the top is less likely to result in the kind of broadly based consumer spending that drives our economy, and together with lax regulation, may contribute to risky speculative bubbles.

“Racism persists. Inequality persists.”
2016, Howard University commencement address (May 2016)
Context: Racism persists. Inequality persists. Don’t worry — I’m going to get to that. But I wanted to start, Class of 2016, by opening your eyes to the moment that you are in. If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn’t know ahead of time who you were going to be — what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you’d be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you'd be born into — you wouldn’t choose 100 years ago. You wouldn’t choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You’d choose right now. If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, “young, gifted, and black” in America, you would choose right now.
I tell you all this because it's important to note progress. Because to deny how far we’ve come would do a disservice to the cause of justice, to the legions of foot soldiers; to not only the incredibly accomplished individuals who have already been mentioned, but your mothers and your dads, and grandparents and great grandparents, who marched and toiled and suffered and overcame to make this day possible. I tell you this not to lull you into complacency, but to spur you into action — because there’s still so much more work to do, so many more miles to travel. And America needs you to gladly, happily take up that work.

2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)
Context: So let me repeat: The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe. And it is not simply a moral claim that I’m making here. There are practical consequences to rising inequality and reduced mobility. For one thing, these trends are bad for our economy. One study finds that growth is more fragile and recessions are more frequent in countries with greater inequality. And that makes sense. When families have less to spend, that means businesses have fewer customers, and households rack up greater mortgage and credit card debt; meanwhile, concentrated wealth at the top is less likely to result in the kind of broadly based consumer spending that drives our economy, and together with lax regulation, may contribute to risky speculative bubbles.

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

Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch. V: "Psychological Explanation of the Idea of Justice and Injustice, and the Determination of the Principle of Government and of Right," Part 2: Characteristics of Communism and of Property
Context: Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is the exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In property, inequality of conditions is the result of force, under whatever name it be disguised: physical and mental force; force of events, chance, fortune; force of accumulated property, &c. In communism, inequality springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence. This damaging equation is repellent to the conscience, and causes merit to complain; for, although it may be the duty of the strong to aid the weak, they prefer to do it out of generosity, — they never will endure a comparison. Give them equal opportunities of labor, and equal wages, but never allow their jealousy to be awakened by mutual suspicion of unfaithfulness in the performance of the common task.
Communism is oppression and slavery. Man is very willing to obey the law of duty, serve his country, and oblige his friends; but he wishes to labor when he pleases, where he pleases, and as much as he pleases. He wishes to dispose of his own time, to be governed only by necessity, to choose his friendships, his recreation, and his discipline; to act from judgment, not by command; to sacrifice himself through selfishness, not through servile obligation. Communism is essentially opposed to the free exercise of our faculties, to our noblest desires, to our deepest feelings. Any plan which could be devised for reconciling it with the demands of the individual reason and will would end only in changing the thing while preserving the name. Now, if we are honest truth-seekers, we shall avoid disputes about words.
Thus, communism violates the sovereignty of the conscience, and equality: the first, by restricting spontaneity of mind and heart, and freedom of thought and action; the second, by placing labor and laziness, skill and stupidity, and even vice and virtue on an equality in point of comfort. For the rest, if property is impossible on account of the desire to accumulate, communism would soon become so through the desire to shirk.

What is Property? (1840)

The Creation of Patriarchy, Introduction, pp. 13-14
The Creation of Patriarchy (1986)

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.”
Speech to the Second National Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights – Chicago (25 March 1966), as quoted in Dan Munro, "America's Forgotten Civil Right - Healthcare" http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2013/08/28/americas-forgotten-civil-right-healthcare/, Forbes (28 August 2013). See also: Amanda Moore, "Tracking Down Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Words on Health Care", Huffington Post (18 August 2013) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amanda-moore/martin-luther-king-health-care_b_2506393.html
1960s

Source: 1970s, Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972), Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973 - 1976 (1978), p. 280

“Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.”
Pearls of Wisdom
“Aristotle's axiom: The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”
Source: Peter's People and Their Marvelous Ideas

“Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.”
Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter I, Part II, p. 770.
Source: The Wealth of Nations

Letter to the central committee of the CPSU (Communist Party of Soviet Union) https://varjag2007su.livejournal.com/2591915.html?utm_source=fbsharing&utm_medium=social (20 October 1970).

Lycurgus, sec. 8. The bolded phrase is often quoted in a paraphrase by Ugo Foscolo: "Wealth and poverty are the oldest and most deadly ailments of all republics" (Le ricchezze e la povertà sono le più antiche e mortali infermità delle repubbliche), Monitore Italiano, 5 February 1798.
Parallel Lives

December 13, 1991, quoted in Friedrich Hayek: A Biography (2001) by Alan O. Ebenstein
1980s and later

We must rethink globalization, or Trumpism will prevail (16 November 2016)

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)
Source: An exploration in the theory of optimum income taxation, 1971, p. 208

An Appeal to the Young (1880)

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity (2002), p. 38

1960s, Family Planning - A Special and Urgent Concern (1966)

Source: (1962), Ch. 13 Conclusion, 2002 edition, p. 198

Source: "Jesus Christ and the Movement for Social Justice" (1911), p. 44

Source: Fugitive Essays: Selected Writings of Frank Chodorov (1980), p. 397, “Freedom Is Better,” Plain Talk, (November 1949)

On Behalf of the Movement of Nonaligned Countries (1979)
Source: The New Social Order (1920), p. 22
Book abstract.
New Directions for Organization Theory, 1997

Oct. 2003, when Cristóbal Montoro, then Home Affairs Minister, announced that there was a surplus in the public purse.
As Opposition Leader
Source: El Mundo, Rodríguez Zapatero reprocha a Rajoy que no afronte el debate presupuestario como líder del PP http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2003/10/28/espana/1067356250.html (Spanish)

The Origin and Ideals of the Modern School (1908)

The Coming War over Genes: Darwin's Enemies on the Left http://www.isteve.com/Darwin-EnemiesonLeft.htm, by Steve Sailer, National Post, December 1, 1999

Source: The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality (2005), p. 32

1990s, Our March to Freedom is Irreversible (1990)

Source: The Subversion of Christianity (1984), p. 134

We must rethink globalization, or Trumpism will prevail (16 November 2016)

2000s, Europe's Anti-American Obsession (2003)
Ill Fares the Land (2010), Ch. 5 : What Is to be Done?

Concurring, Dennis v. United States, 339 U.S. 162, 184 (1950).
Judicial opinions

“The tragedy is that Trump’s program will only strengthen the trend towards inequality.”
We must rethink globalization, or Trumpism will prevail (16 November 2016)
Source: "Conflict and power." 1970, p. 72

Source: The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality (2005), p. 32

[Staff, Bernie Sanders confirms presidential run and damns America's inequities, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/30/bernie-sanders-confirms-presidential-run-and-damns-americas-inequities, 29 April 2015, the Guardian, 2 May 2015]
2010s, 2015

After the Revolution? (1970; 1990), Ch. 4 : From Principles to Problems
Thomas A. Kochan in: "An interview with Thomas A. Kochan," in: Harvard Magazine, Sept. 2012. online at harvardmagazine.com.

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.2 The Social Aims of Jesus, p. 49-50

The Liberal Magazine (January 1898), p. 530, quoted in John Wilson, C.B.: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (London: Constable, 1973), p. 232
Ridgeway (2013) Meet the 2013 ASA President: Cecilia Ridgeway http://www.asanet.org/cecilia-ridgeway. 2013

"Has Market Fundamentalism Had Its Day?" http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1269, The Independent (2008-03-20).