“Equality is treating everyone the same. But equity is taking differences into account, so everyone has a chance to succeed.”
“The ugliest thing in America is greed, the lust for power and domination, the lunatic ideology of perpetual Growth - with a capital G. Progress in our nation has for too long been confused with Growth ; I see the two as different, almost incompatible, since progress means, or should mean, change for the better - toward social justice, a livable and open world, equal opportunity and affirmative action for all forms of life. And I mean all forms, not merely the human. The grizzly, the wolf, the rattlesnake, the condor, the coyote, the crocodile, whatever, each and every species has as much right to be here as we do.”
“Embrace diversity. Unite— Or be divided, robbed, ruled, killed By those who see you as prey. Embrace diversity Or be destroyed.”
“Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal (...). There is a tendency (...) for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious-because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe-some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others-some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men.”
“I m not intimidated by anyone. Everyone is made with two arms, two legs, a stomach and a head. Just think about that.”
“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.”
“Being useful to others is not the same thing as being equal.”
“If they don t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”
“human beings are human beings, just treat everyone like that.”
“On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up.”
“A fair and just society offers equality of opportunity to all. But it cannot promise, and should not try to enforce, sameness.”
“Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.”
“Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”
“I know that it s hard to believe that the people you look to for safety and security are the same people who are causing us so much harm. But I m not lying and I m not delusional. I am scared and I am hurting and we are dying. And I really, really need you to believe me.”
“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.”
“Those who can t match you will malign you.”
“If Christians are all loving and full of God s grace (like some of us really are), do they truly love their neighbor? Would they catch a grenade for one of us (like some of us would for them because we truly have love in our hearts)?”