EQUALITY QUOTES

quotations about equality

Equality quote

Oh and equality's just a dream
There's no system we can trust

NUCLEAR ASSAULT

"Justice", Game Over


Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Gettysburg Address, Nov. 19, 1863


Come forward, some great marshal, and organize equality in society, and your rod shall swallow up all the juggling old court gold-sticks.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

The Book of Snobs


Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

"On the Disadvantages of a Monarchy", The American Democrat, 1838


As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

letter to Joshua F. Speed, August 22, 1855


Unless man is committed to the belief that all mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality.

ALBERT CLAYTON POWELL

attributed, The Greatest Quotations of All Time


Equality is not in regarding different things similarly, equality is in regarding different things differently.

TOM ROBBINS

Still Life with Woodpecker


Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.

STEVEN PINKER

The Blank Slate


God created the first pair equal in rights, possessions, and authority. He bequeathed the earth to them as a joint inheritance; gave them joint dominion over the irrational creation; but none over each other.

ANTOINETTE L. BROWN

speech to woman's rights convention in Syracuse, 1852


Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining.

ALAN MOORE

V for Vendetta


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Unites States Declaration of Independence, 1776


Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.

FRANCES WRIGHT

On the Nature of Knowledge and Kindred Inquiries


No one has yet been found resolute enough in dogmatizing to deny that Nature made man equal; that society has destroyed this equality is a truth not more incontrovertible.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

letter to Elizabeth Hitchener, Jul. 25, 1811


The word 'equality' shows up too much in our founding documents for anyone to pretend it's not the American way.

MARTHA PLIMPTON

Entertainment Tonight, March 5, 2012


All men are equal: it is not birth, but virtue alone, that makes the difference.

VOLTAIRE

attributed, Day's Collacon


We are all equal in the fact that we are all different. We are all the same in the fact that we will never be the same.

ROGUE GALLART

Orlando Sentinel, May 19, 2019


Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.

WILL DURANT

The Lessons of History


The true meaning of the word "Equality" is--"No one better off than I am."

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust


All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with a mighty urge to become otherwise.

EVAN ESAR

20,000 Quips & Quotes


Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow.

ELIZABETH GASKELL

Mary Barton