Luc de Clapiers Quotes

Was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?

Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow.

Women to govern men, slaves freemen, are much in the same degree; all being total violations and perversions of the laws of nature and nations.

Proclaim human equality as loudly as you like, Witless will serve his brother.

As equality increases, so does the number of people struggling for predominance.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.

It is bad to have a servant, but worse to have a master.

The defeats and victories for the people at the top aren't defeats and victories for the people at the bottom.

If you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.

It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

If a test of civilization be sought, none can be so sure as the condition of the half of society over which the other half has power—from the exercises of the right of the strongest.

In a superior civilization, as, for example, that of the Indo-Aryans, the being who is without a characteristic form or caste... would emerge as a pariah. In this respect America is a society of pariahs. There is a role for pariahs. It is to be subjected to beings whose form and internal laws are precisely defined. Instead the modern pariahs seek to become dominant themselves and to exercise their dominion over all the world.

Any organized social group is always a stratified social body. There has not been and does not exist any permanent social group which is "flat" and in which all members are equal.

Believe me, Sir, those who attempt to level never equalize. In all societies consisting of various descriptions of citizens, some description must be uppermost. The levelers, therefore, only change and pervert the natural order of things.

Resentment — that feeling when the modern promise of equality collides with massive disparities of power, education, status and property ownership.

It is always the right of the mighty which prevails over the weak, and that is very primitive.

Everyone may be called "comrade," but some comrades have the power of life and death over other comrades.

Where equality is undisputed, so also is subordination.

The law cannot equalize mankind in spite of nature.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

What we really need to be understanding is that all of these things matter and they all stem from the fact that certain people live with power and authority and they want to maintain it.

Bolivia is not yet a country of equals.

One often has need of one, inferior to himself.

In an ideal world, an individual's institutional power would be correlated perfectly with his or her value-add. In practice, this is seldom the case.