Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes

If the spirit of equality means anything, it means like opportunity, and if we once lose like opportunity, we lose the only chance we have toward equality throughout the nation.

Our aim is a totally new and just constitutional dispension in which every inhabitant will enjoy equal rights, treatment and opportunity in every sphere of endeavour—constitutional, social and economic.

We’ve taken care not to penalize the wealthy but we have to redistribute some income …It is through reform that we can obtain fairness in the modern world…A reformed welfare state is the only way to obtain social justice.

We hold the view that all men are created equal." Now, what did they mean by that? Did they mean, my friends, to say that all men were created equal and that that meant that any one man was born to inherit $10 billion and that another child was to be born to inherit nothing? Did that mean, my friends, that someone would come into this world without having had an opportunity, of course, to have hit one lick of work, should be born with more than it and all of its children and children's children could every dispose of, but that another one would have to be born into a life of starvation?

…no one should own more than a certain amount of land or receive more than a certain amount of income…

Most of all, we should remember all of us are capable of individually helping advance the spirit of equality for all.

I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the abolition of slavery, equality of rights, and the reign of law. Justice, nothing else; that is the alpha and omega of my argument: to others I leave the business of governing the world.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

We live in a world where equality is pretty important.

I champion sensibly designed racial affirmative action, not because I have benefited from it personally - though I have. I support it because, on balance, it is conducive to the public good.

Too often, we fall into the trap of thinking 'equal' means 'the same' and that we achieve equality by treating everyone identically.

Real equality is immensely difficult to achieve, it needs continual revision and monitoring of distributions. And it does not provide buffers between members, so they are continually colliding or frustrating each other.

Equality means nothing unless incorporated into the institutions.

Maybe we ought to have a world in which things are divided between people kind of fairly.

We will not build a society that reflects who we are and that has opportunities for equality or justice if we don't make progress for all participants.

The liberal ideal is that everyone should have fair access and fair opportunity. This is not equality of result. It's equality of opportunity. There's a fundamental difference.

We are all equal, rich and poor, and we need a society where the people enjoy their rights.

It's annoying, but justice and equality are mates. Aren't they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

Everybody thinks that equality comes from identifying people, and that's not where equality comes from.

For me, being leftist means fighting against injustice and inequality but, most of all, we want to live well.

Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.

Democratic principles are the result of equality of condition.

Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.

The men of middling property and poor men can never be safe in a mixed representation with the men of over-grown property.

In our insistence upon equality of opportunity has our system advanced beyond all the world.