Quotes and passages on equality

Equality is essential to human
life and well-being.

Desmond Tutu

All people were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. We are all brothers and sisters. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. Heinmot Tooyalaket (Chief Joseph)

Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism. Barry Goldwater

There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with. Woodrow Wilson

Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now. Joss Whedon

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

Frances Wright

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A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither.
A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.

Milton Friedman

Race, gender, religion, sexuality--we are all people and that's it.
We're all people. We're all equal.

Connor Franta

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 pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism
can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln Letters

Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another
inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned,
everywhere is war. And until there are no longer first-class and
second-class citizens of any nation, until the colour of a person's skin
is of no more significance than the colour of their eyes. And until the
basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to
race, there is war. And until that day, the dream of lasting peace,
world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a
fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained. . . now everywhere is war.

Haile Selassie I
Selected Speeches

I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either.
From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand
attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that
make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the
things that I really admire about people, what they do with their
private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.

Paul Newman

Equality today means “sameness,” rather than “oneness.” It is the sameness of abstractions, of the men who work in the same jobs, who have the same amusements, who read the same newspapers, who have the same feelings and the same ideas.

Erich Fromm
The Art of Loving

We need to eliminate the concept of division by class, skills, race, income, religion, and nationality. Every human requires food and water to survive and every human has a heart that bleeds, loves, and grieves.

Suzy Kassem
Rise Up and Salute the Sun

As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and
don't think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or
poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, 'I'm probably
no better than you, but I'm certainly your equal.

Harper Lee

Genuine equality means not treating everyone the same,
but attending equally to everyone’s different needs.

Terry Eagleton
Why Marx Was Right

I believe music is a place everyone of us can go to.
I don’t care who you are, where you were born,
what you do with your life. Everyone can come here
in music and be equal.

Hayley Williams

“Socialism" is no more an evil word than "Christianity." Socialism
no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered
churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition.
Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated
to the proposition that all men, women, and children
are created equal and shall not starve.

Kurt Vonnegut
A Man Without a Country

Equality of opportunity is not enough. Unless we create an environment
where everyone is guaranteed some minimum capabilities through
some guarantee of minimum income, education, and healthcare, we
cannot say that we have fair competition. When some people have to
run a 100-metre race with sandbags on their legs, the fact that no one is
allowed to have a head start does not make the race fair. Equality of
opportunity is absolutely necessary but not sufficient in building
a genuinely fair and efficient society.

Ha-Joon Chang
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

Franklin Leonard

Of Equality--as if it harm'd me,
giving others the same chances and rights as myself--
as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same.

Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass

I would argue that a truly developed country would be beyond
presidents and kings. In a world with some semblance of equality,
each liberal-minded woman, each gay person, and indeed almost
every person could be their own President. In a world of equals,
what real service does a ruler provide?

Isaac Asimov