Quotes and Sayings about Inequality
"What are we having this liberty for? We are having this liberty in order to reform our social system, which is full of inequality, discrimination and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights."
- B. R. Ambedkar
(Related: Conflict, Discrimination, Rights, Inequality, Liberty, Order, Reform)
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal."
- Aristotle
(Related: Inequality)
"I think it has other roots, has to do, in part, with a general anxiety in contemporary life... nuclear bombs, inequality of possibility and chance, inequality of goods allotted to us, a kind of general racist, unjust attitude that is pervasive."
- Leonard Baskin
(Related: Life, Attitude, Possibility, Anxiety, Bombs, Chance, Inequality)
"And it also became clear that these conditions of inequality and historical injustice have given rise to a feeling of hate in the world - a deeply felt hate that cannot easily be overcome with a few good words."
- Ulrich Beck
(Related: Feeling, Hate, Inequality, Injustice, Words, World)
"The equality among all members of the League, which is provided in the statutes giving each state only one vote, cannot of course abolish the actual material inequality of the powers concerned."
- Hjalmar Branting
(Related: Equality, Giving, Inequality, State, Vote)
"A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Work, Fortune, Inequality, Man, Sight, Sun)
"I remember becoming aware of women's issues and inequality. It became glaringly clear to me when I was living in America that women are regarded as less intelligent than men."
- Julie Christie
(Related: Men, Women, America, Inequality, Living)
"The very existence of government at all, infers inequality. The citizen who is preferred to office becomes the superior to those who are not, so long as he is the repository of power, and the child inherits the wealth of the parent as a controlling law of society."
- James F. Cooper
(Related: Government, Society, Power, Wealth, Existence, Inequality, Law, Office)
"All that a good government aims at... is to add no unnecessary and artificial aid to the force of its own unavoidable consequences, and to abstain from fortifying and accumulating social inequality as a means of increasing political inequalities."
- James F. Cooper
(Related: Government, Consequences, Force, Inequality)
"Inequality can have a bad downside, but equality, for its part, sure does get in the way of coordination."
- Mary Douglas
(Related: Equality, Inequality)
"It's much more acceptable for men to work and father kids. There's an inherent inequality, because we want to do it all, and I don't know how we can do this all."
- Julia Louis Dreyfus
(Related: Men, Work, Father, Inequality, Kids, Want)
"But it is also clear that left entirely untouched by public policy, the capitalist system will produce more inequality than is socially healthy or than is necessary for maximum efficiency."
- Barney Frank
(Related: Policy, Efficiency, Inequality, Public, Public policy, Will)
"Increasing inequality in income distribution in this country has broader policy implications, and there is also the growing problem of perverse incentives that result from executives receiving grossly disproportionate compensation based on decisions they themselves take."
- Barney Frank
(Related: Policy, Country, Decisions, Income, Inequality, Result)
"It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals."
- Felix Frankfurter
(Related: Inequality, Man, Treatment)
"The major economic policy challenges facing the nation today - pick your favorites among the usual suspects of low public and household savings, concerns about educational quality and achievement, high and rising income inequality, the large imbalances between our social insurance commitments and resources - are not about monetary policy."
- Timothy Geithner
(Related: Quality, Policy, Achievement, Income, Inequality, Nation, Public, Today)
"Under-representation of women and other inequality among researchers is a problem that will not solve itself as women acquire competence."
- Tarja Halonen
(Related: Women, Competence, Inequality, Will)
"Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality - an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order."
- Friedrich August von Hayek
(Related: Equality, Determination, Economy, Inequality, Order, Result)
"Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself."
- William Dean Howells
(Related: Heart, American, Inequality, Liberty)
"There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair."
- John F. Kennedy
(Related: Life, Men, War, Country, Inequality)
"In a world of increasing inequality, the legitimacy of institutions that give precedence to the property rights of "the Haves" over the human rights of "the Have Nots" is inevitably called into serious question."
- David Korten
(Related: Rights, Human rights, Inequality, Property, Question, World)
"That's part of American greatness, is discrimination. Yes, sir. Inequality, I think, breeds freedom and gives a man opportunity."
- Lester Maddox
(Related: Opportunity, Greatness, American, Discrimination, Freedom, Inequality, Man)
"Because Katrina put it out there, no one can play the pretend game anymore that there isn't poverty and inequality in this country. The Millions More Movement - Katrina gives it added significance."
- Marc Morial
(Related: Country, Inequality, Play, Poverty)
"As of today, we do not need expert reports by the authoritative analytical institutions to realise that the reasons for such a situation in our community lie in global inequality, poverty and illiteracy."
- Nursultan Nazarbayev
(Related: Lie, Community, Inequality, Poverty, Today)
"Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak."
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
(Related: Communism, Exploitation, Inequality, Property)
"A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence."
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
(Related: Communism, Danger, Excellence, Exploitation, Inequality, Mediocrity)
"The increase in inequality in income is a longtime trend, but the pressure on middle- and low-income workers is going up rapidly. Especially if they live in an area where there are high housing and gas prices, like California."
- Alice Rivlin
(Related: Income, Inequality, Pressure, Workers)
"Everyone has an equal right to inequality."
- John Ralston Saul
(Related: Inequality, Right)
"Diversity on the bench is critical. As practitioners, you need judges who 'get it!' We need judges who understand what discrimination feels like. We need judges who understand what inequality feels like. We need judges who understand the subtleties of unfair treatment and who are willing to call it out when they see it!"
- Debbie Wasserman Schultz
(Related: Discrimination, Diversity, Inequality, Judges, Treatment)
"Another example of the educational inequality is the current debate over publicly financed school vouchers which will provide educational opportunities to a privileged handful, but deprive public schools of desperately needed resources."
- Bobby Scott
(Related: Debate, Example, Inequality, Public, School, Schools, Will)
"A permanent division of labor inevitably creates occupational and class inequality and conflict."
- Robert Shea
(Related: Class, Conflict, Inequality, Labor)
"I think it's a very central tenet to it yes, it is. I can't bear it, I can't bear inequality, I can't bear bad behaviour to other people. I cannot bear it that people are mean to people who can't help what they are."
- Janet Suzman
(Related: People, Help, Inequality)
"God touches and moves, warns and desires all equally, and He wants one quite as much as another. The inequality lies in the way in which His touch, His warnings, and His gifts are received."
- Johannes Tauler
(Related: God, Gifts, Inequality, Lies)
"Can one preach at home inequality of races and nations and advocate abroad good-will towards all men?"
- Dorothy Thompson
(Related: Home, Men, Inequality, Nations)
"Inequality makes everyone unhappy, the poor most of all, and that is well within the remit of the state. More money gives less extra happiness the richer we get, yet we are addicted to earning and spending more every year."
- Polly Toynbee
(Related: Happiness, Money, Inequality, Poor, State)
"It is the belief that extremes and excesses of inequality must be reduced so that each person is free to fully develop his or her full potential. This is why we take precious time out of our lives and give it to politics."
- Paul Wellstone
(Related: Politics, Time, Belief, Extremes, Inequality, Potential)
"Postmodernism refuses to privilege any one perspective, and recognizes only difference, never inequality, only fragments, never conflict."
- Elizabeth Wilson
(Related: Conflict, Difference, Inequality, Perspective, Privilege)