1.
The land is ours. It's not European and we have taken it, we have given it to the rightful people... Those of white extraction who happen to be in the country and are farming are welcome to do so, but they must do so on the basis of equality.
Robert Mugabe
2.
I'll tell you how I'd like to be remembered: As a black man who won the heavyweight title - Who has humorous and who never looked down on those who looked up to him - A man who stood for freedom, justice and equality - And I wouldn't even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was.
Muhammad Ali
3.
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.
Audre Lorde
We can't be divided by our distinctions, but rather by our failure to recognize, embrace, and rejoice in them.
4.
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
Adam Smith
No nation can expect to thrive and be content if a majority of its citizens are destitute and unhappy.
5.
In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
Baron de Montesquieu
At the outset of life, all individuals are endowed with equivalence, yet this parity is lost as soon as they enter into society. To reclaim it requires the intercession of legal authority.
6.
All men by nature are equal in that equal right that every man hath to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man; being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
John Locke
7.
I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.
Alice Paul
I never questioned that equality was the right path. Most transformations, most dilemmas are intricate. But to me there is nothing complex about just fairness.
8.
There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.
Saint Augustine
No one is immune from mistakes; all may hope for redemption.
9.
The civil rights movement didn't begin in Montgomery and it didn't end in the 1960s. It continues on to this very minute.
Julian Bond
The struggle for equality and justice has been an ongoing effort since its inception, not limited to Montgomery or the 1960s. It persists in the present day.
10.
Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breathe.
Langston Hughes
Allow the United States to remain a nation of equal opportunity, where liberty is pervasive.
11.
Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.
Malcolm X
Don't be too quick to judge because he doesn't act the way you do or think as you think or at the same pace. Remember that there was a moment in the past when your current level of knowledge wasn't available.
12.
In a composite Nation like ours, made up of almost every variety of the human family, there should be, as before the Law, no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no black, no white, but one country, one citizenship equal rights and a common destiny for all.
A government that cannot or does not protect the humblest citizen in his right to life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, should be reformed or overthrown, without delay.
Frederick Douglass
13.
All citizens including women are equally admissible to all public dignities, offices, and employments, according to their capacity, and with no other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.
Olympe de Gouges
14.
If someone needs to express their gender in a way that is different, that is okay, and they should not be denied healthcare. They should not be bullied. They don’t deserve to be victims of violence. … That’s what people need to understand, that it’s okay and that if you are uncomfortable with it, then you need to look at yourself.
Laverne Cox
15.
Equal rights for all, special privileges for none
Thomas Jefferson
"Fairness for all, preferential treatment for none."
16.
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
Aristotle
The most egregious form of disparity is to attempt to equate disparate entities.
17.
Women will be no longer made the slaves of, or dependent upon men ... They will be equal in education, rights, privileges and personal liberty.
Robert Owen
Women will no longer be subjugated to, or reliant upon men ... They will be equal in education, entitlements, advantages and freedom of movement.
18.
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
A community that prioritizes liberty before uniformity will enjoy an abundance of both.
19.
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
Alexis de Tocqueville
'Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but the concept of equal footing. But observe the distinction: while democracy seeks equality through independence, socialism looks for it through constraint and subjection.'
20.
To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.
William Faulkner
To inhabit anywhere in the world nowadays and oppose parity because of ethnicity or hue is like inhabiting in Alaska and being against frost.
21.
We must stop constantly fighting for human rights and equal justice in an unjust system, and start building a society where equal rights are an integral part of the design.
Jacque Fresco
We must cease incessantly struggling for human rights and fairness in an unjust system, and begin constructing a society where equitable rights are integral to its construction.
22.
It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less
Susan B. Anthony
23.
I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
Thomas Paine
24.
Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.
Josephine Baker
25.
True community is based on upon equality, mutuality, and reciprocity. It affirms the richness of individual diversity as well as the common human ties that bind us together.
Pauli Murray
'Genuine fellowship is grounded in parity, interdependence, and interchange. It acknowledges the profundity of individual divergence while additionally recognizing the shared humane connections that unite us.'
26.
I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity.
B. R. Ambedkar
I am in favor of the faith that advocates freedom, fairness, and camaraderie.
27.
To me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.
Alice Paul
To me there is nothing convoluted about basic fairness.
28.
If we were to select the most intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and emotionally stable third of mankind, all races would be present.
Franz Boas
If we were to choose the most astute, inventive, dynamic and emotionally sound one-third of humanity, all ethnicities would be accounted for.
29.
Those who directed the state in the time of Solon and Cleisthenes did not establish a polity which ... trained the citizens in such fashion that they looked upon insolence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, impudence of speech as equality, and licence to do what they pleased as happiness, but rather a polity which detested and punished such men and by so doing made all the citizens better and wiser.
Isocrates
30.
It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.
Harvey Milk
It requires no surrender to grant individuals their privileges. It necessitates no capital to esteem the single person. It demands no poll to abolish oppressions.
31.
Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.
Kofi Annan
Gender parity is an essential step towards ameliorating poverty, promoting long-term development and instituting solid governance.
32.
My answer to the racial problem in America is to not deal with it at all. The founding fathers dealt with it when they made the Constitution.
James Meredith
My response to the racial disparity in America is to ignore it. The forefathers resolved this issue when they implemented the Constitution.
33.
There is in fact a manly and legitimate passion for equality that spurs all men to wish to be strong and esteemed. This passion tends to elevate the lesser to the rank of the greater. But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.
Alexis de Tocqueville
34.
A man of abilities and character, of any sect whatever, may be admitted to any office of public trust under the United States.
Edmund Randolph
36.
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.
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
37.
The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, 'It's a girl.'
Shirley Chisholm
38.
I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one 'race' - the human race - and that we are all members of it.
Margaret Atwood
39.
Until we reach equality in education, we can't reach equality in the larger society.
Sonia Sotomayor
40.
I feel more comfortable with gorillas than people. I can anticipate what a gorilla's going to do, and they're purely motivated.
Dian Fossey
41.
Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.
Mikhail Bakunin
42.
Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them.
B. R. Ambedkar
43.
These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.
Abraham Lincoln
44.
the public sphere is as consistently based on the law of equality as the private sphere is based on the law of universal difference and differentiation. Equality, in contrast to all that is involved in mere existence, is not given us, but is the result of human organization insofar as it is guided by the principle of justice. We are not born equal; we become equal as members of a group on the strength of our decision to guarantee ourselves mutually equal rights.
Hannah Arendt
45.
IT IS TIME THAT WE ALL SEE GENDER AS A SPECTRUM INSTEAD OF TWO SETS OF OPPOSING IDEALS.
Emma Watson
46.
The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.
Eric Berne
47.
In Nicaragua, liberty, equality and the rule of law were the stuff of dreams. But in Paris I discovered the value of those words.
Bianca Jagger
48.
The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.
Simone de Beauvoir
49.
None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.
Jane Austen
50.
I had explained that a woman's asking for equality in the church would be comparable to a black person's demanding equality in the Ku Klux Klan
Mary Daly