Quotes About Equality

No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.

Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.

We are all Federalists,and we are all Republicans.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Nobody is better than you and remember, you are better than nobody. Thomas Jefferson

That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)

Courts love the people always, as wolves do the sheep

the measure of society is how it treats the weakest members

The rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

I am convinced that those societies which live without government enjoy in their gen'l mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness.

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollection of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

The women are submitted to unjust drudgery. This I believe is the case with every barbarous people. With such, force is law. The stronger sex therefore imposes on the weaker. It is civilization alone which replaces women in the enjoyment of their natural equality. That first teaches us to subdue the selfish passions, and to respect those rights in others which we value in ourselves. Were we in equal barbarism, our females would be equal drudges.

All is safe where all can read, is a quotation from Thomas Jefferson showing his belief in the importance of everyone knowing how to and being able/allowed to read. I would like to take it one step further. I would say, All is BETTER when all can read. No matter what you like to read, the ability to read it, understand it, and enjoy it, truly enriches your life.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

It is safer to have a whole people respectably enlightened than a few in a high state of science and the many in ignorance.

Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man.

Liberty is the parent of science and of virtue, and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.