“With reciprocity all things do not need to be equal in order for acceptance and mutuality to thrive. If equality is evoked as the only standard by which it is deemed acceptable for people to meet across boundaries and create community, then there is little hope. Fortunately, mutuality is a more constructive and positive foundation for the building of ties that allow for differences in status, position, power, and privilege whether determined by race, class, sexuality, religion, or nationality.”
“For love is exultant when it unites equals, but it is triumphant when it makes that which was unequal equal in love.”
“All men are born free: just not for long.”
“FIGHT FOR EQUALITY, NOT TO SEEK REVENGE, PLEASE!”
“Let us transform our world in such a way that every living man and woman feels their life as a blessing and not a curse.”
“When you begin with the premise I treat everyone equally, you have already blinkered yourself from seeing where you don t, or can t, or shouldn t. There is no way to treat two people equally, because they are each unique, with respective strengths and weaknesses.”
“To a mankind that recognizes the equality of man everywhere, every war becomes a civil war.”
“Equality, citizens, is not the whole of society on a level, a society of tall blades of grass and small oaks, or a number of entangled jealousies. It is, legally speaking, every aptitude having the same opportunity for a career; politically all consciences having the same right. Equality has an organ, gratuitous and compulsory education. We must begin with the right to the alphabet.”
“Equality makes everyone into a prostitute for social influence points, or status. This leads them to become entirely self-serving, independent of their actual role in civilization, and this leads to a mixture of arrogance, pretense, narcissism and solipsism which is the defining feature of the person in the egalitarian society.”
“Even before she could articulate it, she knew that boys were somehow responsible for at least half of making a baby. And her experience had taught that some boys don t stick around to see the project through.”
“When we are underconfident, we desire to be accepted unconditionally. That way no matter how much goes wrong and how little we accomplish, we are still guaranteed a place in society. Those who are so damaged in confidence and self-esteem that they assume they will never get anything right, and never accomplish anything of note, demand not only a place in society, but one equal to those who get things right and accomplish things. Although a defensive outlook, this viewpoint is projected forward as a pre-emptive strike on feelings of inadequacy, regret and doubt. When enough people gather who have this viewpoint, we create a society where social factors - being nice, novelty of approach, possessions owned, ironic or unusual lifestyles - become more important than ability. If you want to know how the path to Idiocracy is paved, this is it. Natural selection now favors the social, not the competent, and so society breeds future generations of incompetent (but very sociable) people.”
“Fatalism and selfishness will be eternally popular because they re the same thing. Don t reach out into the world and challenge yourself; you re fine just the way you are! Don t strive for anything. Don t grow. Just be, and you re EQUAL and we re all happy. If people aren t convinced, hide behind the idea that nothing ever changes and there s no point doing anything, except living for your own comfort and convenience.”
“There is no chance of welfare in the society, unless the conditions of the working class are improved.”
“Sonnet of Progress Where the nation ends, There the world begins. Where the self fades, There community begins. Where luxury withers, There equality begins. Where biases shrink, There truth begins. Where pride dies, There growth begins. Where rigidity ends, There life begins. Such true life is forever revered. Prejudice conquered is world conquered.”
“God or no god, there s no excuse thinking you re better than anyone else, judging others negatively because of your choice of faith.”
“No matter how good we get at solving environmental problems, it’s not enough to create a truly sustainable economy unless we address the social challenges that imperil sustainability. Foremost among those challenges are inequality and poverty.”
“Nor does the paradox and danger of this situation fail to interest and perplex the best conscience of the South. Deeply religious and intensely democratic as are the mass of the whites, they feel acutely the false position in which the Negro problems place them. Such an essentially honest-hearted and generous people cannot cite the caste-levelling precepts of Christianity, or believe in equality of opportunity for all men, without coming to feel more and more with each generation that the present drawing of the color-line is a flat contradiction to their beliefs and professions.”