The Best Quotes About Equality

Updated June 14, 2019 1.2k votes 405 voters 25.6k views

List RulesMust be a famous or well-known quote. Vote for the equality sayings that strongly resonate with you, and downvote any you didn't like.

A list of the best equality quotes and sayings, including the names of each speaker or author when available. This list is sorted by popularity, so only the most famous equality quotes are at the top. The authors of these historic equality quotes are displayed next to each quote, so if you see one you like be sure to check out other inspirational equality quotes from that same writer.

This list answers the questions, "What are the best quotes about equality?" and "What are inspirational equality quotes?"

This list includes notable equality quotes by various authors, writers, playwrights, speakers, politicians, athletes, poets, and more. Vote on your favorites so that the greatest equality quotes rise to the top, as the order of the list changes dynamically based on votes. Don't let your favorite equality sayings get to the bottom of the list.

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1
101
22
No man is above the law, and no man is below it.
Theodore Roosevelt
2
101
26
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal
Martin Luther King, Jr.
3
76
24
All people are equal, it is not birth, it is virtue alone that makes the difference.
Voltaire
4
54
19
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
Thomas Jefferson
5
37
18
Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons.
Aristotle
6
23
9
We are all alike, on the inside.
Mark Twain
7
34
24
All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.
Bob Dylan
8
25
13
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell
9
28
19
A friend to everybody and to nobody is the same thing.
10
21
13
“Equality must be maintained, if it is promised.”
Janet Morris, Chris Morris
11
11
2
The deadly Hydra now is the hydra of Equality. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity is the three-fanged serpent.
D. H. Lawrence
12
14
6
It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Samuel Johnson
13
13
6
We were equals once when we lay new-born babes on our nurse's knees. We will be equal again when they tie up our jaws for the last sleep.
Olive Schreiner

14
9
1
The intelligence suffers today automatically in consequence of the attack on all authority, advantage, or privilege. These things are not done away with, it is needless to say, but numerous scapegoats are made of the less politically powerful, to satisfy the egalitarian rage awakened.
Wyndham Lewis
15
16
11
No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.
George Orwell
16
20
17
Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.
Simone Weil
17
9
2
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
Samuel Johnson
18
9
4
A commitment to sexual equality with males is a commitment to becoming the rich instead of the poor, the rapist instead of the raped, the murderer instead of the murdered.
Andrea Dworkin
19
18
18
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
Aristotle
20
8
4
Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people, but the great would always be those who had done great things, and never the idiots whose mothers had spoiled them and whose fathers had left them a hundred thousand a year; and the little would be persons of small minds and mean characters, and not poor persons who had never had a chance. That is why idiots are always in favor of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favor of equality.
George Bernard Shaw
21
10
8
The trauma of the Sixties persuaded me that my generation's egalitarianism was a sentimental error. I now see the hierarchical as both beautiful and necessary. Efficiency liberates; egalitarianism tangles, delays, blocks, deadens.
Camille Paglia
22
11
10
You cannot have all chiefs; you gotta have Indians too.
23
10
10
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

24
5
3
In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.
Bertrand Russell
25
11
12
Six feet of earth make all men equal.

No man is above the law, and no man is below it.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal

All people are equal, it is not birth, it is virtue alone that makes the difference.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons.

We are all alike, on the inside.

All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

A friend to everybody and to nobody is the same thing.

“Equality must be maintained, if it is promised.”

The deadly Hydra now is the hydra of Equality. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity is the three-fanged serpent.

It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

We were equals once when we lay new-born babes on our nurse's knees. We will be equal again when they tie up our jaws for the last sleep.

The intelligence suffers today automatically in consequence of the attack on all authority, advantage, or privilege. These things are not done away with, it is needless to say, but numerous scapegoats are made of the less politically powerful, to satisfy the egalitarian rage awakened.

No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.

Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

A commitment to sexual equality with males is a commitment to becoming the rich instead of the poor, the rapist instead of the raped, the murderer instead of the murdered.

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

The trauma of the Sixties persuaded me that my generation's egalitarianism was a sentimental error. I now see the hierarchical as both beautiful and necessary. Efficiency liberates; egalitarianism tangles, delays, blocks, deadens.

You cannot have all chiefs; you gotta have Indians too.

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.

In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.

Six feet of earth make all men equal.