Equality & Social Justice quotes for UPSC & State PCS

Who vaunts his race, lauds what belongs to others.

Any man that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.

Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.

You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.

If God is put up with untouchability, I will not call him God.

It's class warfare. My class is winning, but they shouldn't be.

Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.

The only parallel to the practice of untouchability was apartheid.

Caste is not just a division of labour, it is a division of labourers.

I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home.

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.

The colour of someone's skin should not determine his or her political rights.

They cripple the bird's wing, and then condemn it for not flying as fast as they.

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

Equality may be a fiction but nonetheless one must accept it as governing principle.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed.

The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors

I have never regarded any man as my superior, either in my life outside or inside prison.

All mortals are equal; it is not their birth, But virtue itself that makes the difference.

Anyone who knows of a provable instance of colour discrimination ought always to expose it.

Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth.

Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.

No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.

It is absurd to quote religion or God or religious doctrines to render the people as lowest castes.

All of us do not have equal talent. But, all of us have an equal opportunity to develop our talents.

The first who was king was a fortunate soldier: Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you.

I have always held that social justice, even to the least and lowliest, is impossible of attainment by force.

I detest racialism because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.

Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut.

To-day unbind the captive, So only are ye unbound; Lift up a people from the dust, Trump of their rescue, sound!

Criticism will annihilate race-prejudices by insisting upon the unity of the human mind in the variety of its forms.

No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.

We have not taken and we shall not take a single backward step. There must be no second class citizens in this country.

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people.

Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.

I believe that none of us are fully free when others in the human family remain shackled by poverty or disease or oppression.

In the world's audience hall, the simple blade of grass sits on the same carpet with the sunbeams, and the stars of midnight.

It is the duty of righteous men to make war on all undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that this is a war without end.

It is a trite yet urgently true observation that if America is to remain a first-class nation, it cannot have second-class citizens.

Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in 'changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them.'

Dalits have faced a unique discrimination in our society that is fundamentally different from the problems of minority groups in general.

Everyone had something unique to offer in life and their responsibility was to develop those gifts - and heroes come from all backgrounds.

A deepened consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as an historical reality susceptible of transformation.

This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in.

We are—proudly—a people with no sense of class or caste. We judge no man by his name or inheritance, but by what he does—and for what he stands.

I for one will join with anyone—I don't care what color you are—as long as you want to change the miserable condition that exists on this earth.

To me the earth's most explosive and pernicious evil is racism, the inability of God's creatures to live as One, especially in the Western world.

The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organized.

Every man who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is not fit to rule another country must admit that a class is not fit to rule another class.

This is the contradiction of racism, colonialism, and all forms of tyranny: in order to treat a man like a dog, one must first recognize him as a man.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

The humble sages, by virtue of true knowledge, see with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste].

Every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several States is today null and void, precisely as in every one against Negroes.

It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level.

There is in the Constitution no East, no West, no North, no South, no black, no white, no slave, no slaveholder, but all are citizens who are of American birth.

Not by birth does one become an outcaste, not by birth does one become a brahman. By one's action one becomes an outcaste, by one's action one becomes a brahman.

A man does not become a Brahmana by his platted hair, by his family, or by birth; in whom there is truth and righteousness, he is blessed, he is a Brahmana. (Verse 393)

I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse.

Whatever be the difference in people’s caste, creed, language and religion, since they are from the same creation, there is no harm in their dining together and marrying each other.

Given what can be achieved through intelligent and humane intervention, it is amazing how inactive and smug most societies are about the prevalence of the unshared burden of disability.

A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers' wages or stretching workers' hours.

We must ever judge each individual on his own conduct and merits, and not on his membership in any class, whether that class be based on theological, social, or industrial considerations.

I am not antagonistic to the rightful claims of capital; I am far from wanting to flourish a hostile flag; but I am of opinion that the masses, too, have rights which should be considered.

Dehumanization, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed.

The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education.

It goes without saying that a civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence.

To have given each one of the million Negro free families a forty-acre freehold would have made a basis of real democracy in the United States that might easily have transformed the modern world.

The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.

If I am something of a social leveller, it is not because I want to give silly people a good time, but because I want to make opportunity universal, and not leave out one single being who is worth while.

I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.

Ah! when will the yoke of Custom—Custom, the blind tyrant, of which all other tyrants make their slave—ah! when will that misery-perpetuating yoke be shaken off?—when, when will Reason be seated on her throne?

Lovers of God do not belong to any caste. … A brāhmin without this love is no longer a brāhmin. And a pariah with the love of God is no longer a pariah. Through bhakti an untouchable becomes pure and elevated.

All people are born equal, all people die in the end and keep nothing of their worldly status. All riches, all power and all greatness exist only for so few years, why then is that mortality clung to so strongly?

The thinking man must … oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. True manhood is too precious a spiritual good for us to surrender any part of it to thoughtlessness.

This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

It is one of the strange ironies of history, that in a nation founded on the principle that all men are created equal, men are still arguing over whether the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character.

Indians today are governed by 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.

I care not how affluent some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy affluence with the felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, while so much misery is mingled in the scene.

The aged are cared for until death; adults are employed in jobs that make full use of their abilities; and children are nourished, educated, and fostered;...orphans... the disabled and the diseased are all well taken care of....

Poverty must not be used as an excuse to continue child labor and exploitation of children … It’s a triangular relationship between child labor, poverty and illiteracy, and I have been trying to fight all of these things together.

In the United States of North America, every independent movement of the workers was paralysed so long as slavery disfigured a part of the Republic. Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded.

Whenever racial discrimination exists it is a tragic expression of man's spiritual degeneracy and moral bankruptcy. Therefore, it must be removed not merely because it is diplomatically expedient, but because it is morally compelling.

Human nature is not simple and any classification that roughly divides men into good and bad, superior and inferior, slave and free, is and must be ludicrously untrue and universally dangerous as a permanent exhaustive classification.

I hate and despise a shrewish suspicion of foreigners and foreign ways; a man who can look me in the face, laugh with me, speak truth and deal fairly, is my brother, though his skin is as black as ink or as yellow as an evening primrose.

The right of no nation depends upon the date of its birth or the size of its power. As there can be no second class citizens before the law of America, so—we believe—there can be no second-class nations before the law of the world community.

I detest apartheid. I couldn't stand being excluded or discriminated against because of the colour of my own skin. And if you can't stand a colour bar against yourself, you can't stand it against anyone else. Apartheid is wrong and it must go.

We may enjoy our room in the tower, with the painted walls and the commodious bookcases, but down in the garden there is a man digging who buried his father this morning, and it is he and his like who live the real life and speak the real language.

I believe that the United States as a government, if it is going to be true to its own founding documents, does have the job of working toward that time when there is no discrimination made on such inconsequential reason as race, color, or religion.

In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and endowed. The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class.

And besides; the problem of land, at its worst, is a bye one; distribute the earth as you will, the principal question remains inexorable, —Who is to dig it? Which of us, in brief word, is to do the hard and dirty work for the rest, and for what pay?

Man is equal to man. There should not be exploitation. One should help the other. No one should harm anybody. Generally there should be no room for grievance or complaint from anybody. Everyone should live and let others to live, with a national spirit.

Caste, religion, the political system, the economic system — all are helping the bonded labor owners … I believe in Gandhi’s philosophy of the last man, that is, the bonded laborer is the last man in Indian society, that we are here to liberate the last man.

The claims of the most backward sections like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who have suffered neglect and have hard to endure disabilities for many centuries. It would be my proud privilege to work for the establishment of a more just social order.

No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Prejudice is not a failing peculiar to one race, it can and does exist in people of every race and ethnic background. It takes individual effort to root it out of one's heart. In my case my father and mother saw that it never got a start. I shall be forever grateful to them.

Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society.

I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly, those who desire it for others. When I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

Men are like pillow-cases. The colour of one may be red, that of another blue, and that of the third black; but all contain the same cotton within. So it is with man; one is beautiful, another is ugly, a third holy, and a fourth wicked; but the Divine Being dwells in them all. (37)

..the art of becoming 'rich', in the common sense, is not absolutely nor finally the art of accumulating much money for ourselves, but also of contriving that our neighbour shall have less. In accurate terms, it is 'the art of establishing the maximum inequality in your own favour'.

Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favor of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favor of the masters.

There can be no equality or opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they can not alter, control, or singly cope with.

Improving the opportunities across the board is extremely important to sustain the legitimacy of wealth. If a whole horde of people, whole sections of society don't feel they have the opportunities, then the focus is going to be on those who have it and who have made it and say that is illegitimate.

In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists.

The point is, there are millions of Americans outside Washington who are tired of stale political arguments and are moving this country forward. They believe, and I believe, that here in America, our success should depend not on accident of birth but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams.

I believe in God who made of one blood all races that dwell on earth. I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.

The needs of a society determine its ethics.

As a rule it is circumstances that make men.

In all things, there is neither male nor female.

Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.

Anatomy is not destiny, but it is not irrelevant either.

It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.

Let the nation try justice and the problem will be solved.

No nation is fit to sit in judgment upon any other nation.

Translation: When the rich make war, it's the poor that die.

When you have no money your life is one long series of snubs.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

Partial freedom seems to me the most invidious form of slavery.

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.

The best brains of a nation may be in the last bench of a classroom.

If men must beg to live, May the Creator also go wandering and perish.

You are a king by your own fireside, as much as any monarch in his throne.

You cannot be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of equality.

What do you suppose will satisfy the soul except to walk free and own no superior?

I believe the only way to protect my own rights is to protect the rights of others.

This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confessed — Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed.

Human trafficking is not a business model, it is a crime, and we are going to stop it.

Does being a man make all things forgivable and being a woman all things unforgivable?

No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.

I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which women have achieved.

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.

While no one liberates himself by his own efforts alone, neither is he liberated by others.

In justice as fairness society is interpreted as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage.

That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.

Landlords... grow richer, as it were in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing.

I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

Truth and Virtue do not necessarily belong to wealth and Power and Distinctions of Big Mansions.

The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.

It may be expedient but it is not just that some should have less in order that others may prosper.

My political ideal is democracy. Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

One caste, one religion, one God for man. Whatever be the religion, it is enough if the man is good.

The rich never go hungry, but the poor are always starving. This is the real tragedy of our society.

Similarly, individual acts of aristocratic generosity do not eliminate pauperism; they perpetuate it.

The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown. He must dominate in his turn.

Father, Mother, and Me, Sister and Auntie say All the people like us are We, And every one else is They.

In India we celebrate the commonality of major differences; we are a land of belonging rather than of blood.

My father says that education is neither Eastern or Western. Education is education: it's the right of everyone.

We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race.

We don't want apartheid liberalized. We want it dismantled. You can't improve something that is intrinsically evil.

All work, even cotton spinning, is noble; work is alone noble ... A life of ease is not for any man, nor for any god.

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

It is when the majorities are denied their right to participate in history as Subjects that they become dominated and alienated.

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.

The poor themselves can create a poverty-free world — all we have to do is to free them from the chains that we have put around them.

The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth point goes; The butterfly upon the road Preaches contentment to that toad.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.

No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of its minorities.

How can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what's already yours?

All men are in need of help and depend on one another. Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual.

It is the duty of a writer to protect and argue in favour of those who are oppressed, sufferers, whether an individual or a group deprived.

In short, over the last ten years the Negro decided to straighten his back up, realizing that a man cannot ride your back unless it is bent.

I am a firm believer that any legitimate government has to be based on rule of law and a recognition that all people are equal under the law.

All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody’s property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls.

One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius; and the feminine situation has up to the present rendered this becoming practically impossible.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.

The only thing that has ever distinguished America among the nations is that she has shown that all men are entitled to the benefits of the law.

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.

No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones.

On tight money: It reflects a reversion to the old idea that the tree can be fertilized at the top instead of at the bottom — the old trickle-down theory.

For one true measure of a nation is its success in fulfilling the promise of a better life for each of its members. Let this be the measure of our nation.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

No society can function as a society, unless it gives the individual member social status and function, and unless the decisive social power is legitimate.

Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must at that moment become the center of the universe.

A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of.

The first requisite of civilization, therefore, is that of justice—that is, the assurance that a law once made will not be broken in favour of an individual.

The international community . . . allows nearly 3 billion people—almost half of all humanity—to subsist on $2 or less a day in a world of unprecedented wealth.

The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.

Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man it should be paid as highly.

A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.

I propose to value them according to their character, and not according to their duties. Each man acquires his character for himself, but accident assigns his duties.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of the public more than that of people of some rank and fortune.

Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building.

Religion has no business to formulate social laws and insist on the difference between beings, because its aim and end is to obliterate all such fictions and monstrosities.

We differ, blind and seeing, one from another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them, in the imagination and courage with which we seek wisdom beyond the senses.

The principle that adequate health care should be provided for all, regardless of ability to pay, must be the foundation of any arrangements for financing the Health Service.

I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.

Democracy has to be judged not just by the institutions that formally exist but by the extent to which different voices from diverse sections of the people can actually be heard.

The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.

Poverty has been created by the economic and social system that we have designed for the world. It is the institutions that we have built, and feel so proud of, which created poverty.

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

Actually, the problem for the world as a whole is not how to distribute such wealth that exists but how to increase production, without which economic equality merely means common misery.

People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.

People—communities, castes, races and even countries—carry their tragic histories and their misfortunes around like trophies, or like stock, to be bought and sold on the open market. (p198)

I do not demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women.

It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.

If there is to be support for trade globalization in the developed world, we must make sure that the benefits and costs are more evenly shared, which will entail more progressive income taxation.

The abolition of the evil is not impossible; it ought never therefore to be despaired of. Every plan should be adopted, every experiment tried, which may do something towards the ultimate object.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Therefore, no American can afford to be apathetic about the problem of racial justice. It is a problem that meets every man at his front door.

They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me…

Tolerance is not a Sapiens trademark. In modern times, a small difference in skin colour, dialect or religion has been enough to prompt one group of Sapiens to set about exterminating another group.

It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness and chivalry 'masculine' when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in them, to describe a man's sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as 'feminine'.

I sit on a man's back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.

Society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter in upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it.

Science has adapted itself entirely to the wealthy classes and accordingly has set itself to heal those who can afford everything, and it prescribes the same methods for those who have nothing to spare.

The Agricultural Revolution... enlarged the... total... food.., but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. ...[I]t translated into population explosion and pampered elites.

I am uncompromising in the matter of woman's rights. In my opinion she should labour under no legal disability not suffered by man, I should treat the daughters and sons on a footing of perfect equality.

We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.

The direct elimination of poverty should be the objective of all development aid. Development should be viewed as a human rights issue, not as a question of simply increasing the gross national product GNP.

South Africa needs all its people black and white; young and old; Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jewish. There is a place for all of us provided we have the courage to work together to build that common future.

In brief, all this Mammon-Gospel, of Supply-and-demand, Competition, Laissez-faire, and Devil take the hindmost, begins to be one of the shabbiest Gospels ever preached on Earth; or altogether the shabbiest.

The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples — that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.

I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know. I do not believe that you know. I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to human skill.

We also know that populism can take dangerous turns -– from the extremism of those who would use democracy to deny minority rights, to the nationalism that left so many scars on this continent in the 20th century.

What moves us, reasonably enough, is not the realization that the world falls short of being completely just – which few of us expect – but that there are clearly remediable injustices around us which we want to eliminate.

Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor.

A girl has the power to go forward in her life. And she’s not only a mother, she’s not only a sister, she’s not only a wife. But a girl has the – she should have an identity. She should be recognized and she has equal rights as a boy.

Voters should consider them, but without illusions about the political parties, and with the recognition that consistenly over the centuries, progressive legislation and social welfare have been won by popular struggles, not gifts from above.

The 400 of us pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you're in the luckiest 1 percent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 percent.

The future of any country which is dependent upon the will and wisdom of its citizens is damaged, and irreparably damaged, whenever any of its children is not educated to the full extent of his talent, from grade school through graduate school.

A great stock, though with small profits, generally increases faster than a small stock with great profits. Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have a little, it is often easier to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little.

Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.

Misery and poverty are so absolutely degrading, and exercise such a paralysing effect over the nature of men, that no class is ever really conscious of its own suffering. They have to be told of it by other people, and they often entirely disbelieve them.

I. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities, that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.

Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains that the other half can soar into skies?

Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; progress must be shared.

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. ... People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. ... For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Vainly you talk about voting it down. When you have cast your millions of ballots, you have not reached the evil. It has fastened its root deep into the heart of the nation, and nothing but God’s truth and love can cleanse the land. We must change the moral sentiment.

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.

I do not believe in the doctrine of the greatest number. It means in its nakedness that in order to achieve the supposed good of 51 per cent the interests of 49 per cent may be, or rather, should be sacrificed. It is a heartless doctrine and has done harm to humanity.

Our country—this great republic—means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.

It is only through multilateral institutions that States can hold each other to account. And that makes it very important to organize those institutions in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong.

We believe in freedom with a passion that only those who have been denied it for so long can understand it, We believe in equality because so many in our nation have been denied for so long, we believe in human worth for that is the basis for all our current work in India.

An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

In part, free trade has not worked because we have not tried it: trade agreements of the past have been neither free nor fair. They have been asymmetric, opening up markets in the developing countries to goods from the advanced industrial countries without full reciprocation.

The world can no longer accept, the world can no longer accept that basic education is enough. Why do leaders accept that for children in developing countries, only basic literacy is sufficient, when their own children do homework in Algebra, Mathematics, Science and Physics?

A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.

Every man shall be entitled to a sound and objective education and there shall be genuine equality of opportunity. Education shall be a matter of environment as well as of instruction, and everyone shall be entitled to an education untouched by the interests of any party or religion.

Every country and every culture has traditions that are unique and help make that country what it is. But just because something is a part of your past doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t mean that it defines your future. [...] Just because something is a tradition doesn’t make it right.

In my opinion, a society that aims for equality before liberty will end up with neither equality nor liberty. A society that aims first for liberty will not end up with equality, but it will end up with a closer approach to equality than any other kind of system that has ever been developed.

Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and our people rediscover their identity and thereby increase their self respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people who prepare for it today.

The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.

As human soldiers and workers give way to algorithms, at least some elites may conclude that there is no point in providing improved or even standard levels of health for masses of useless poor people, and it is far more sensible to focus on upgrading a handful of superhumans beyond the norm.

People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being.

Doors are opening now that were not open in the past, and the great challenge facing minority groups is to be ready to enter these doors as they open. No greater tragedy could befall us at this hour but that of allowing new opportunities to emerge with out the concomitant preparedness to meet them.

At least since the Agricultural Revolution, most human societies have been patriarchal societies that valued men more highly than women. ... Fewer resources are invested in the health and education of women; they have fewer economic opportunities, less political power, and less freedom of movement.

Islam does not command narrowmindedness and racial and religious prejudice. It does not make the recognition of merit and virtue, of human benevolence, mercy and love dependent upon and subject to distinctions of religion and race. It teaches us to respect every man who is good, whatever his religion.

There are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of the other people — the 150 or 160 million — is the responsibility of the president of the United States, and I propose to fulfill it.

One of the wonderful things about the information highway is that virtual equity is far easier to achieve than real-world equity...We are all created equal in the virtual world and we can use this equality to help address some of the sociological problems that society has yet to solve in the physical world,

Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community, and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilisation.

The Secretary General, in a very real sense, is the servant of the General Assembly. Diminish his authority and you diminish the authority of the only body where all nations, regardless of power, are equal and sovereign. Until all the powerful are just, the weak will be secure only in the strength of this Assembly.

What, in unenlightened societies, colour, race, religion, or in the case of a conquered country, nationality, are to some men, sex is to all women; a peremptory exclusion from almost all honourable occupations, but either such as cannot be fulfilled by others, or such as those others do not think worthy of their acceptance.

When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.

Throughout history, societies have suffered from two kinds of poverty: social poverty... withholds from some... the opportunities available to others; and biological poverty... puts... life... at risk due to lack of food and shelter. Perhaps social poverty can never be eradicated, but in many countries... biological poverty is a thing of the past.

In the beginning, the liberal story cared mainly about the liberties and privileges of middle-class European men, and seemed blind to the plight of working-class people, women, minorities and non-Westerners. When in 1918 victorious Britain and France talked excitedly about liberty, they were not thinking about the subjects of their worldwide empires.

All democracies, especially in developing countries that have considerable diversities and carry the burden of developmental imbalances, have had to grapple with one paramount challenge and that is : how to harmonies’ the legitimate self – assertion of communities that suffered deprivation and dis-empowerment in the past with imperatives of good governance.