Inequality Quotes - Page 2

People are like stars in the night sky, all are not equal, but still, everyone shines.

A thorough investigation would prove that nine crimes out of ten could be traced, directly or indirectly, to our economic and social iniquities, to our system of remorseless exploitation and robbery.

Emma Goldman

From a mathematical point of view, however, trust is hard to quantify. That's a challenge for people building models. Sadly, it's far easier to keep counting arrests, to build models that assume we're birds of a feather and treat us as such. Innocent people surrounded by criminals get treated badly, and criminals surrounded by law-abiding public get a pass. And because of the strong correlation between poverty and reported crime, the poor continue to get caught up in the digital dragnets. The rest of us barely have to think about them.

Cathy O'Neil

Equality, as understood by the American Founders, is the natural right of every individual to live freely under self-government, to acquire and retain the property he creates through his own labor, and to be treated impartially before a just law. Moreover, equality should not be confused with perfection, for man is also imperfect, making his application of equality, even in the most just society, imperfect. Otherwise, inequality is the natural state of man in the sense that each individual is born unique in all his human characteristics. Therefore, equality and inequality, properly comprehended, are both engines of liberty.

Mark R. Levin

America’s education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequity from one generation to the next.

Nicholas Kristof

The eye of true equality often seems to have some degree of disrespect for the supposedly accomplished, privileged high and lofty to the supposedly accomplished, privileged high and lofty, although in reality, it's simply irrespectiveness.

Criss Jami

Cripples are not the stuff of romance. Only Lord Byron, dragging his club foot, springs to mind as an exception to the rule, but such a failing in a man is regarded as interesting, even provocative, rather than disfiguring. Women must submit to a more exacting measure.

Mordecai Richler

Pity womankind, but never a woman.

Warren Eyster

If our goal is to slow migration, then the best way to do so is to work for a more equitable global system. But slowing migration is an odd goal, if the real problem is global inequality.

Aviva Chomsky

So long as tyranny exists, in whatever form, man's deepest aspiration must resist it as inevitably as man must breathe.

Emma Goldman

Justice requires not only the ceasing and desisting of injustice but also requires either punishment or reparation for injuries and damages inflicted for prior wrongdoing. The essence of justice is the redistribution of gains earned through the perpetration of injustice. If restitution is not made and reparations not instituted to compensate for prior injustices, those injustices are in effect rewarded. And the benefits such rewards conferred on the perpetrators of injustice will continue to "draw interest," to be reinvested, and to be passed on to their children, who will use their inherited advantages to continue to exploit the children of the victims of the injustices of their ancestors. Consequently, injustice and inequality will be maintained across the generations as will their deleterious social, economic, and political outcomes.

Amos Wilson

One hour devoted to mourning and lamenting theStolen equality of the weak is nobler than aCentury filled with greed and usurpation.

Kahlil Gibran

Rather than justice for all, we are evolving into a system of justice for those who can afford it. We have banks that are not only too big to fail, but too big to be held accountable.

Joseph E. Stiglitz

In effect, the poor person is a rich person left to fend for him or herself, without the support of institutions that help the person to take 'good' decisions.

Daniel Cohen

I am he who cometh out of the depths. My lords, you are great and rich. There lies your danger. You profit by the night; but beware! The dawn is all-powerful. You cannot prevail over it. It is coming. Nay! it is come. Within it is the day-spring of irresistible light. And who shall hinder that sling from hurling the sun into the sky. The sun I speak of is Right. You are Privilege. Tremble!

Victor Hugo

The global industrial food system holds an inherent contradiction. It is a major source of global warming pollution, and at the same time it is threatened by increasing climate chaos. This same food system currently leaves close to a billion people hungry, not for a lack of food production or "overpopulation"-as many textbooks tell students- but because the global market privileges the profits of multinational corporations over the human rights to food.

Bill Bigelow

In a society in which equality is a fact, not merely a word, words of racial or sexual assault and humiliation will be nonsense syllables.

Catharine A. MacKinnon

Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

Thomas Jefferson

I am not posing these questions only to the world at large. I query us who own Christ as our life. Can God be pleased by the vast and increasing inequities among us? Is he not grieved by our arrogant accumulation, while Christian brothers and sisters elsewhere languish and die? Is it not obligatory upon us to see beyond the nose of our own national interest, so that justice may roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream? Is there not an obligation upon us to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God is we want to live in his wonderful peace?

Richard J. Foster

Treat people like people. Beware of pity and patronization because in them, you can't see when you're unashamedly looking down on someone.

Criss Jami

Venice was a contrast from Los Angeles itself, where you might see a woman with $15,000 tits, a face frozen in place by Botox, wobbling with her $4,000 Gucci bag right past a child with a sunken belly and exposed ribs encaging a heart too weak to scream.

Jackie Haze

Some of us are happy with our African hair, thank you very much. I don't want some poor Indian girl's hair. And I wish to God I could buy black hair products from black people for once. How we going to make it in this country if we don't make our own business?

Zadie Smith

By God, if women had written stories,As clerks had within here oratories,They would have written of men more wickednessThan all the mark of Adam may redress.

Geoffrey Chaucer

A man is educated and turned out to work. But a woman is educated — and turned out to grass.

Pearl S. Buck

Never having experienced inequality, therefore, the majority of straight white men will be absolutely oblivious to their own advantages – not because they must necessarily be insensitive, sexist, racist, homophobic or unaware of the principles of equality; but because they have been told, over and over again, that there is no inequality left for them – or anyone else – to experience – and everything they have experienced up to that point will only have proved them right.Let the impact of that sink in for a moment.By teaching children and teenagers that equality already exists, we are actively blinding the group that most benefits from inequality – straight white men – to the prospect that it doesn’t. Privilege to them feels indistinguishable from equality, because they’ve been raised to believe that this is how the world behaves for everyone. And because the majority of our popular culture is straight-white-male-dominated, stories that should be windows into empathy for other, less privileged experiences have instead become mirrors, reflecting back at them the one thing they already know: that their lives both are important and free from discrimination.And this hurts men. It hurts them by making them unconsciously perpetrate biases they’ve been actively taught to despise. It hurts them by making them complicit in the distress of others. It hurts them by shoehorning them into a restrictive definition masculinity from which any and all deviation is harshly punished. It hurts them by saying they will always be inferior parents and caregivers, that they must always be active and aggressive even when they long for passivity and quietude, that they must enjoy certain things like sports and beer and cars or else be deemed morally suspect. It hurts them through a process of indoctrination so subtle and pervasive that they never even knew it was happening , and when you’ve been raised to hate inequality, discovering that you’ve actually been its primary beneficiary is horrifying – like learning that the family fortune comes from blood money.Blog post 4/12/2012: Why Teaching Equality Hurts Men

Foz Meadows

The seeming imperfections of Earth, the hazards and inequalities of life, the cruelty, harshness and apparent indifference to suffering and affliction are not what they seem; as it is Earth is perfect for its purpose. It is ignorance of that purpose which makes it appear imperfect.

Kolbrin BIble

Power is a fickle mistress, easy to seduce, but even easier to lose. That's how it works. One moment she is your closest confidant, whispering the secrets of the universe into your ear; the next, she is your vilest oppressor—and once her ears close to your plights you are well and truly screwed.

Nenia Campbell

The real debate about both the horrific inequality in the world and about the terrorism and frightening instability in the world requires analysis of the differences in upset-adaption or alienation-from-soul between individuals, races, genders, generations, countries, civilisations and cultures, but until the human condition could be explained and the upset state of the human condition compassionately understood and thus defended that debate could not take place.

Jeremy Griffith

Clearly it's not easy for women in modern society, no matter where they live. We still have to go the extra mile to prove that we are equal to men. we have to work longer hours and make more sacrifices. And we must emotionally protect ourselves from unfair, often vicious attacks made on us via the male members of our family.

Benazir Bhutto

Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence.

Christine de Pizan

The tourists had money and we needed it; they only asked in return to be lied to and deceived and told that single most important thing, that they were safe, that their sense of security—national, individual, spiritual—wasn’t a bad joke being played on them by a bored and capricious destiny. To be told that there was no connection between then and now, that they didn't need to wear a black armband or have a bad conscience about their power and their wealth and everybody else’s lack of it; to feel rotten that no-one could or would explain why the wealth of a few seemed so curiously dependent on the misery of the many. We kindly pretended that it was about buying and selling chairs, about them asking questions about price and heritage, and us replying in like manner.But it wasn’t about price and heritage, it wasn’t about that at all.The tourists had insistent, unspoken questions and we just had to answer as best we could, with forged furniture. They were really asking, 'Are we safe?' and we were really replying, 'No, but a barricade of useless goods may help block the view.' And because hubris is not just an ancient Greek word but a human sense so deep-seated we might better regard it as an unerring instinct, they were also wanting to know, 'If it is our fault, then will we suffer?' and we were really replying, 'Yes, and slowly, but a fake chair may make us both feel better about it.

Richard Flanagan

The great hatred of capitalism in the hearts of the oppressed, ancient and modern, I think, stems not merely from the ensuing vast inequality in wealth, and the often unfair and arbitrary nature of who profits and who suffers, but from the silent acknowledgement that under a free market economy the many victims of the greed of the few are still better off than those under the utopian socialism of the well-intended. It is a hard thing for the poor to acknowledge benefits from their rich moral inferiors who never so intended it. (p.272)

Victor Davis Hanson

Our democratic societies rest on a meritocratic worldview, or at any rate a meritocratic hope, by which I mean a belief in a society in which inequality is based more on merit and effort than on kinship and rents. This belief and this hope play a very crucial role in modern society, for a simple reason: in a democracy, the professed equality of rights of all citizens contrasts sharply with the very real inequality of living conditions, and in order to overcome this contradiction it is vital to make sure that social inequalities derive from rational and universal principles rather than arbitrary contingencies. Inequalities must therefore be just and useful to all, at least in the realm of discourse and as far as possible in reality as well.

Thomas Piketty

I could go into their reality any time I chose to, but they could never come into mine. This is what I called 'helping' them.

Agnostic Zetetic

You should not have too many people waiting on you, you should have to do most things for yourself. Hotel service is embarrassing. Maids, waiters, bellhops, porters and so forth are the most embarrassing people in the world for they continually remind you of inequities which we accept as the proper thing. The sight of an ancient woman, gasping and wheezing as she drags a heavy pail of water down a hotel corridor to mop up the mess of some drunken overprivileged guest, is one that sickens and weighs upon the heart and withers it with shame for this world in which it is not only tolerated but regarded as proof positive that the wheels of Democracy are functioning as they should without interference from above or below. Nobody should have to clean up anybody else’s mess in this world. It is terribly bad for both parties, but probably worse for the one receiving the service.

Tennessee Williams

From this moment there would be no question of virtue or morality; for despotism cui ex honesto nulla est spes, wherever it prevails, admits no other master; it no sooner speaks than probity and duty lose their weight and blind obedience is the only virtue which slaves can still practice.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The problem is that rich are getting richer by not giving and poor and getting poorer by not receiving.

Santosh Kalwar

It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

George Orwell

For women as a class, the ability to transform sexual practice, to achieve respect from men as equal human beings and thus break out of their subordinate status, is undermined by the ability of men to escape from the responsibility of acknowledging women's equality. Men's use of women in prostitution stands directly in the way of women's efforts to improve their status.

Sheila Jeffreys

You know how the story ends. He escaped and went on to become the greatest chief Suntown ever had. He never built a shrine or a temple or even a shack in the name of Tia. In the Great Book, her name is never mentioned again. He never mused about her or even asked where she was buried. Tia was a virgin. She was beautiful. She was poor. And she was a girl. It was her duty to sacrifice her life for his.

Nnedi Okorafor

My girlfriends and I talk a lot about feminism and the inequality between the way men and women are talked about, the kind of things we say are, ‘Why is it mischievous, fun and sexy if a guy has a string of lovers that he’s cast aside; loved and left? Yet if a woman dates three or four people in an eight-year period she is a serial dater and it gives some 12-year-old the idea to call her a ‘slut’ on the internet?’ It’s not the same for boys, it just isn’t and that’s a fact.

Taylor Swift

Six men control almost all the media in the United States--book publishing, magazines, television, movie studios, newspapers, and radio. They are not friendly toward feminism, which has almost disappeared from the surface of our society. You will almost never see a feminist column on an op-ed page, a feminist article in a magazine, or newspaper, actual (not satirized) feminist ideas on television or in the movies. Only magazines & radio controlled by feminists--and these are few and not well-funded--offer information on the feminist perspective.This might be understandable if feminism were a wild-eyed manic philosophy. But it is a belief, a politics, based on one simple fact: women are human beings who matter as much as men. That is all that feminism claims. As human beings, women have the right to control their own bodies, to walk freely in the world, to train their minds and bodies, and to love and hate at will. Only those who wish to continue to coerce women into a servant/slave class for men cannot accept this principle.

Marilyn French

When we combine very real workplace inequalities with these romantic opt-out stories, the idea that "having it all" is a laughable goal becomes enshrined as immutable truth. And when we portray opting out as a simple matter of "choice," we ignore the systematic problems that make combining work and motherhood so difficult.

Emily Matchar

Sexism is not confined by border, race, class, sexuality or gender and, to my mind (and Margo Kingston's in Chapter 6), it is inextricably bound up with a mindset of entitlement that also afflicts our relationship with the planet.

Samantha Trenoweth

MAGISTRATEDon't men grow old?LYSISTRATANot like women. When a man comes homeThough he's grey as grief he can always get a girl.There's no second spring for a woman. None.She can't recall it, nobody wants her, howeverShe squanders her time on the promise of oracles,It's no use...

Aristophanes

our society is unequal, and bodily difference is used to justify that inequality.

Emer O'Toole

It is our entire culture, the way it runs on money, rewards inhumanity, encourages disconnection and isolation, causes great inequality and suffering, that's the enemy. That is the only enemy worth fighting.

Jessa Crispin

When you hear men talking," said Cornelia, "all they ever do is speak ill of women. ... And I don't quite know how they managed to make this law in their favour, or who exactly it was who gave them a greater license to sin than is allowed to us; and if the fault is common to both sexes (as they can hardly deny), why should the blame not be as well? What makes them think they can boast of the same thing that in women brings only shame?

Moderata Fonte

Morals do exist outside of organized religion, and the ‘morality’ taught by many of these archaic systems is often outdated, sexist, racist, and teaches intolerance and inequality. When a parent forces a child into a religion, the parent is effectively handicapping his or her own offspring by limiting the abilities of the child to question the world around him or her and make informed decisions. Children raised under these conditions will mature believing that their religion is the only correct one, and, in the case of Christianity, they will believe that all who doubt their religion’s validity will suffer eternal damnation. This environment is one that often breeds hate, ignorance, and ‘justified’ violence.

David G. McAfee

It occurred to me that as a man I could do anything, everything I wanted.

Sara Sheridan

Nothing is as unique as sex in nature; it is full of enjoyment, pleasure and happiness. There is no discrimination, no exclusion, no inequality and no racism.

M.F. Moonzajer

The worst form of inequality, is the inequality of ideals A people united by the same ideal, irrespective of religion, social status, race, political preference or sexual, would have the strength to fight for a fairer country.

Marcela Re Ribeiro

Inequality and poverty, health and wealth are hand in hand. And if we are all born equal that should be true in all lands. We cannot divide the world between poor and rich countries. It's like saying the ones are good, the others are junkies. That can only increase more prejudice, miseries and sorrow. Turning the wheel today it will lead to a better tomorrow.

Ana Claudia Antunes

It’s the process of being minimized, invalidated, silenced. It’s the process of being subjected to whatever someone else thinks I owe them. It’s the process of being used, examined, explored, and thrown away. It’s the process of being convinced to comply with the orders of someone who does not see me as their equal, someone who sees nothing wrong with the notion that I’m somehow lesser than they are. Rape isn’t about sex; it’s about all those other things. It’s about power.

Agnostic Zetetic

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.

Reni Eddo-Lodge

... in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women's experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men.

Judith Lewis Herman

The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house

Audre Lorde

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

Paulo Freire

Love without humility results in the inclination to act as everyone's parent, humility without love results in the need to be everyone's child, and love with humility results in the desire to be a friend.

Criss Jami

Actions that exemplify the limitations of a singular devotion to the profit motive, also draw a troublesome distinction between what is legal and what is moral.

Usman W. Chohan

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Inequality Quotes - Page 2

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