“I believe in the equality of man and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.”
Equality sounds simple until you try to define it. These quotes wrestle with justice, fairness, civil rights, and the gap between how things are and how they should be. They come from activists, leaders, philosophers, and people who refused to accept the status quo.
“A fundamentalist can't bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality.”
“I believe in the equality of man and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.”
“As a first step there must be an offer to achieve equality of rights in disarmament by abolishing the weapons forbidden to the Central Powers by the Peace Treaties.”
“The media says that equality for women has arrived, but if you look around, you still don't see girls playing guitars and having success with it.”
“Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.”
“Socialism values equality more than liberty.”
“Proclaim human equality as loudly as you like, Witless will serve his brother.”
“I am totally against the idea that a Muslim woman should not have the same opportunities as a Muslim man to learn, to open up, to work, help shape the future. To close Islam down to a sexist approach is totally intolerable and ridiculous. It's not Islam.”
“We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.”
“From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.”
“We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments.”
“There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.”
“Gender equality will only be reached if we are able to empower women.”
“Virtue can only flourish among equals.”
“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.”
“I believe there is complete equality between men and women. And I believe those passages in the New Testament, not by Jesus, but by Paul, that say women should not adorn themselves, they should always wear hats or color their hair in church - things like that - I think they are signs of the times and should not apply to modern-day life.”