Best 1222 quotes in «equality quotes» category

In the past, only some of the males, but all of the females, were able to procreate. Equality is more natural for females.

In the race of life, of death, no runner is ahead, no runner behind.

In the realm of dream and imagination all men are equal.

In the room of holding out an example for imitation, [the nobility] give only a warning to the lower classes of the people, who are taught to despise the boasted pre-eminence of birth, when attached to the meanest actions and most unwarrantable pursuits; and from hence proceeds all the licentiousness and spirit of equality that causes general disturbance.

In the problem of women was the germ of a solution, not only for their oppression, but for everybody's. The control of women in society was ingeniously effective. It was not done directly by the state. Instead the family was used- men to control women, women to control children, all to be preoccupied with one another , to turn to one another for help, to blame one another for trouble, to do violence to one another when things weren't going right. Why could this not be turned around? Could women liberating themselves, children freeing themselves, men and women beginning to understand one another, find the source of their common oppression outside rather than in one another? Perhaps then they could create nuggets of strength in their own relationships, millions of pockets of insurrection. They could revolutionize thought and behavior in exactly that seclusion of family privacy which the system had counted on to do its work of control and indoctrination. And together, instead of at odds- male, female, parents, children- they could undertake the changing of society itself.

In vain will the world seek for equality until it has seen all men through the eyes of faith. Faith teaches that all men, however poor, or ignorant, or crippled, however maimed, ugly, or degraded they may be, all bear within themselves the image of God, and have been bought by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. As this truth is forgotten, men are valued only because of what they can do, not because of what they are.

[I]n the years that followed the persecutions, Christianity came to see itself, with great pride, as a persecuted Church. Its greatest heroes were not those who did good deeds but those who died in the most painful way. If you were willing to die an excruciating end in the arena then, whatever your previous holiness or lack thereof, you went straight to heaven: martyrdom wiped out all sins on the point of death. As well as getting there faster, martyrs enjoyed preferential terms in paradise, getting to wear the much-desired martyr’s crown. Tempting celestial terms were offered: it was said that the scripture promised ‘multiplication, even to a hundred times, of brothers, children, parents, land and homes’. Precisely how this celestial sum had been calculated is not clear but the general principle was: those who died early, publicly and painfully would be best rewarded. In many of the martyr tales the driving force is less that the Romans want to kill – and more that the Christians want to die. Why wouldn’t they? Paradoxically, martyrdom held considerable benefits for those willing to take it on. One was its egalitarian entry qualifications. As George Bernard Shaw acidly observed over a millennium later, martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability. More than that, in a socially and sexually unequal era it was a way in which women and even slaves might shine. Unlike most positions of power in the highly socially stratified late Roman Empire, this was a glory that was open to all, regardless of rank, education, wealth or sex. The sociologist Rodney Stark has pointed out that – provided you believe in its promised rewards – martyrdom is a perfectly rational choice. A martyr could begin the day of their death as one of the lowliest people in the empire and end it as one of the most exalted in heaven. So tempting were these rewards that pious Christians born outside times of persecution were wont to express disappointment at being denied the opportunity of an agonizing death. When the later Emperor Julian pointedly avoided executing Christians in his reign, one Christian writer far from being grateful, sourly recorded that Julian had ‘begrudged the honour of martyrdom to our combatants’.

I recall Ghandi said ultimately all things devolve into the political, but I'd argue that all things devolve into pro-people and anti-people. And I can pose the question, which side are you on?

I spent years," he told me, "studying the phenomenon of love." "And I spend years studying the phenomenon of justice." "At base, we spend years studying the same thing.

It doesn't matter who you are. Everyone's fear is equal.

In the true married relationship, the independence of husband and wife will be equal, their dependence mutual, and their obligations reciprocal.

Invisible lines, unbreakable rules Could all bend at the mercy of love

I oppose same-sex marriage but I would advance equal rights in employment for gay and lesbian people. I appointed a few judges who were gay and I had few people in my cabinet that I found out were gay. I never asked peoples sexual orientation.

I oppose same-sex marriage and civil unions but I support domestic partnership between gay and lesbian couples. I have no problem with gay and lesbian couples adopting. I support equal benefits for same-sex couples such as hospital visitation rights

I rather have you win, because in God even those who are in second place are first.

I remained a socialist for several years, even after my rejection of Marxism; and if there could be such a thing as socialism combined with individual liberty, I would be a socialist still. For nothing could be better than living a modest, simple, and free life in an egalitarian society. It took some time before I recognized this as no more than a beautiful dream; that freedom is more important than equality; that the attempt to realize equality endangers freedom; and that, if freedom is lost, there will not even be equality among the unfree.

I shake my head at my friend. “Not only is they lines, but you know good as I do where them lines be drawn.” Aibileen shakes her head. “I used to believe in em. I don’t anymore. They in our heads. People like Miss Hilly is always trying to make us believe they there. But they ain’t.

It doesn't matter who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love, it only matters that you love!

It is an amazing contradiction: a society that frowns on a woman going out without a man; that forces you to use separate entrances for universities, banks, restaurants, and mosques; that divides restaurants with partitions so that unrelated males and females cannot sit together; that same society expects you to get into a car with a man who is not your relative, with a man who is a complete stranger, by yourself and have him take you somewhere inside a locked car, alone.

It is a wise man who said there is no inequality than the equal treatment of unequals. Fillossofee: Messages From a Grandfather, an ebook

I think that's what the people who change our lives always do. They give us permission to be the person we secretly really long to be but maybe don't feel we're allowed to be.

It is a thing that knows no limit, and before it all men are equal; and the silence of king or slave, in presence of death, or grief, or love, reveals the same features, hides beneath its impenetrable mantle the self-same treasure. For this is the essential silence of our soul, our most inviolable sanctuary, and its secret can never be lost;

It is difficult to exaggerate the adverse influence of the precepts and practices of religion upon the status and happiness of woman. Owing to the fact that upon women devolves the burden of motherhood, with all its accompanying disabilities, they always have been, and always must be, at a natural disadvantage in the struggle of life as compared with men.... With certain exceptions, women all the world over have been relegated to a position of inferiority in the community, greater or less according to the religion and the social organisation of the people; the more religious the people the lower the status of the women...

It is clear that corporate America has an obligation to create a fairer, more equitable, more sustainable economy for no other reason than self-preservation.

It is a melancholy fact which exponents of democracy must face that, while all men may be on a level in the eyes of the State, they will continue in fact to be preposterously unequal.

It is easy for us to accept that the division of people into 'superiors' and 'commoners' is a figment of the imagination. Yet the idea that all humans are equal is also a myth. [...] Advocates and of equality and human rights may be outraged by this line of reasoning. Their response is likely to be 'We know that people are not equal biologically! But if we believe that we are all equal in essence, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.' I have no argument with that. That is exactly what I mean by 'imagined order'. We believe in a particular order not because it is objectively true, but because believing in it enables us to cooperate effectively and forge a better society. Imagined orders are not evil conspiracies or useless mirages. Rather, they are the only way large numbers of humans can cooperate effectively. Bear in mind, though, that Hammurabi might have defended his principle of hierarchy using the same logic: 'I know that superiors, commoners and slaves are not inherently different kinds of people. But if we believe that they are, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.

It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as [inherently] exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

It is irrational to assume that you can fault someone because of the color of their skin, no matter what color that may be.

It is not my ambition to marry a white woman or swim in a white pool. It is political equality that we want.

It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen: if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful disease. Those who look tenderly at the slave owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter; what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children — those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own — being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty...

It is related of Buonaparte, that he one day rebuked a French lady for busying herself with politics. "Sire," replied she, "in a country where women are put to death, it is very natural that women should wish to know why." And, dear sisters, in a country where women are degraded and brutalized, and where their exposed persons bleed under the lash-- where they are sold in the shambles of "negro brokers"-- robbed of their heard earnings-- torn from their husbands, and forcibly plundered of their virtue and their offspring; surely in such a country, it is very natural that women should wish to know "the reason why"-- especially when these outrages of blood and nameless horror are practiced in violation of the principles of our Constitution. We do not, then, and cannot concede the position, that because this is a political subject women ought to fold their hands in idleness, and close their eyes and ears to the "horrible things" that are practiced in our land. The denial of our duty to act is a bold denial of our right to act; and if we have no right to act, then may we well be termed "the white slaves of the North"-- for like our brethren in bonds, we must seal our lips in silence and despair.

It is scarcely the same thing to put a man on the Moon as to put a bone in your nose.

It is clear that now the war for legal equality has been won, the war for lover’s parity has begun.

I told him I had, perhaps, different notions of matrimony from what the received custom had given us of it; that I thought a woman was a free agent as well as a man, and was born free, and, could she manage herself suitably, might enjoy that liberty to as much purpose as the men do; that the laws of matrimony were indeed otherwise, and mankind at this time acted quite upon other principles, and those such that a woman gave herself entirely away from herself, in marriage, and capitulated, only to be, at best, but an upper servant, and from the time she took the man she was no better or worse than the servant among the Israelites, who had his ears bored—that is, nailed to the door-post—who by that act gave himself up to be a servant during life; that the very nature of the marriage contract was, in short, nothing but giving up liberty, estate, authority, and everything to the man, and the woman was indeed a mere woman ever after—that is to say, a slave.

It’s amazing to me that it’s still considered a notable, commendable trait –‘Oh, she’s a well-known feminist’ –in a woman, or a girl, or a man, or a boy. That that is the unusual thing. Really, it should be the reverse. Rather than what seems like a minority having to spend time, energy, brain and heart explaining why they’re ‘into’ equality, the majority should be explaining why they’re not. You put the time into explaining why –in a world where every concept of justice, wisdom, progress and rightness is a human invention –we still prefer the human concept of ‘some people being inferior to others’ over ‘this is a vast, inky, cold, empty universe, and in it, we are the only humans that exist, all sharing a tiny milky green/ blue world, and faced with a multitude of problems, and an infinite capacity for joy, and should therefore try and stick together and accord each other some respect’.

It's a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I'll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can't give a warm supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor things!" ... "Now, John, I don't know anything about politics, but I can read my Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow.

It's because of my grandfather that I became a Young Avenger. But it's hard sometimes, to be a black kid carrying a name like "Patriot". I remember talking to Captain America about before he died, and he explained what Patriotism meant to him... It wasn't about blindly supporting your government. It was about knowing what your country could be, what it should be... And trying to lead it there through your example. And holding it accountable when it failed. I remember he said: "There's noting patriotic about corruption or cover-ups... or defending them. But exposing them, well, that takes a hero.

It seems to me that the greatest triumph of any human rights movement, be it fighting for racial, religious, sexual or gender equality – is to achieve that moment where eyes are opened so wide that a sort of blindness sets in. I don’t care if someone is black, white, gay or straight. I don’t care if a woman has children or no – I just want to know who they are. [...] At the end of the day, gender differences seem to me to be just a tiny, tiny drop in the great expanse of things that make people unique. Unique, not ‘different’, not ‘other’ merely another piece of that great teaming mass that makes up the wonderfully rich, thrillingly varied definition of ‘humanity’." [Playing Butch: Blog entry, February 24, 2014]

It's clear that equality doesn't quite cut it. Asking for a sliver of disproportionate power is too polite a request. I don't want to be included. Instead, I want to question who created the standard in the first place.

It’s time to reach deep into the soul of this country and once again give everyone — and I mean everyone — the opportunity to achieve the impossible.

It's time we woke up, women are pretty much people, seems to me. I know they dress like fools- but who´s to blame for that? We invent all those idiotic hats of theirs, and design their crazy fashions, and, what's more, if a woman is courageous enough to wear common-sense clothes -and shoes- which of us wants to dance with her? Yes, we blame them for gratifying us, but are we willing to let our wives work? We are not. It hurts our pride, that's all. We are always criticizing them for doing mercenary marriages, but what do we call a girl who marries a chump with no money? Just a poor fool, that's all. And they know it. As for Mother Eve- I wasn't there and I can't deny the story, but I will say this. If she brought evil into the world, we men have had the loin's share of keeping it going ever since- how about that?

It's Unfair to be fair, For Life is unfair

It takes no compromise to give people their rights...it takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression.

I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee's life of the poet. She died young--alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh.

It's never ok to hit a girl. Never. Not even if she cheats on you. A girl is not your property. She's a human being. She is just as important as you. She is your equal. And her wishes and feelings are just as valid as yours. All you can do is treat her nice, and hope she wants to be with you. If she chooses to be with you, great! If not, or if she chooses to leave you at some point, you have to let her go. You have no right to stop her. You don't own her, and you don't have the right to tell her what to do. She's your partner. Not your servant, not your sex slave, and not your punching bag.

It's not enough for the torch of liberty to be held up high only by one woman, every human must hold the torch up high in every corner of the world.

It's not equality that counts, it's reprocity that counts. Love is not like a balance sheet. There's no such thing as double-entry accounting when it comes to love.

It still remains unrecognised, that to bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society; and that if the parent does not fulfil this obligation, the State ought to see it fulfilled, at the charge, as far as possible, of the parent.

It would seem that the right to equality and human rights is far more an exclusive thing than an inclusive thing.

Listen, everyone, you all have your own circumstances. Some of you come from rich families,and some poor. But your value isn't determined by such things--by things beyond your control. Each one of you must discover your own worth through your own efforts. So... don't make the mistake of thinking you alone are special.