Quotes About Equality

Treat people superbly and compensate them fairly.

The great Enlightenment principles of modernity—liberalism, secularism, rationality, equality, free markets—do not provide the kind of tribal group identity that human beings crave and have always craved. They have strengthened individual rights and individual liberty, created unprecedented opportunity and prosperity, transformed human consciousness, but they speak to people as individuals and as members of the human race, whereas the tribal instinct occupies the realm in between.

When free market democracy is pursued in the presence of a market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result is backlash. This backlash typically takes on of three forms. The first is a backlash against markets, targeting the market-dominant minority's wealth. The second is a backlash against democracy by forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is violence, sometimes genocidal, directed against the market-dominant minority itself

It's not enough that we view one another as fellow human beings; we need to view on another as fellow Americans. And for that we need to collectively find a national identity capacious enough to resonate with, and hold together as one people, Americans of all sorts - old and young, immigrant and native born, urban and rural, descendants of slaves as well as descendants of slave owners.

But American group blindness abroad is also rooted in some of our noblest ideals: tolerance, equality, individualism, the power of reason to triumph over irrational hatred, and the conviction that all men are united by their common humanity and love of liberty.

This what's so peculiar about America. We have been both exceptionally racist and exceptionally inclusive.

It's no coincidence that the Constitution didn't mention "the pursuit of happiness", which the Declaration of Independence called an inalienable right.

Their story, as the Delany sisters like to say, is not meant as "black" or "women's" history, but American history. It belongs to all of us. (From the Preface of "Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years)

All I ever wanted in my life was to be treated as an individual. I have succeeded, to some extent. At least I'm sure that in the Lord's eyes, I am an individual. I am not a "colored" person, or a "Negro" person, in God's eyes. I am just me! The Lord won't hold it against me that I'm colored because He made me that way! He thinks I am beautiful! And so do I, even with all my wrinkles! I am beautiful! -Bessie

If there's anything that bothers me, it's one person demeaning another. That really makes me mad!

Peace means no one is worried about anyone else's cookie...in this moment we are all quietly content with the cookies we have.

You cannot take a person's humanity and then retain your own

The point is, they have a public thing against the overweight and the underbeautiful. Those are my people there, Jared. Those are the people who pull the curtain and write the plays and make the costumes—those are the people who make the dream but who don't live it on the front of the stage. Anyone who knocks those people is not going to get my business. Or yours, because you're better than that.

No," Sammy said, shrugging. "It makes sense. Cierra has two moms, so it's got to balance somewhere. I'm sorry you can't eat dinner with us.

If basketball loves me as much as I've loved this sport, then it's not going to care who I am when I play it. If the world hates me more than it loves basketball, then I'd say that's the world's loss.

It's not privilege when it makes you feel awful, when it cripples your ability to do good things in the world.

What? The world needs one less Jew?

Damn, Trav wanted this, had barely dared dream of it, yearned for the time Mackey Sanders would be old enough, whole enough, well enough, to possess like this, like a man, an equal, a partner.

Maybe someday, it won't have to be a tragedy to be gay, you

Except here!" Danny laughed. "Oh no, sweetheart. Felix and I are Rock Hudson-grade gay.

Sure it is," Trav said, realizing it as he said it. "It's why there's all the fuss about legalizing gay marriage. When you're happy, you want the world to acknowledge that your happiness is valid.

All I'm saying is kids want a family. I'm saying a good family needs to understand that kids are going to be themselves. None of that changes when you grow up. You are not going to stop wanting the family you grew up with—that was safe for you. And they are going to need to accept you as you are, good and bad, gay or straight, if they're going to claim they've done their jobs.

I may be a faggot," he said clearly, "but at least I'm not a moron, an asshole, or a rednecked motherfucker.

Oh my God… we're some sort of gay enforcement squad!