Henry A. Wallace Quotes

True equality means holding everyone accountable in the same way, regardless of race, gender, faith, ethnicity - or political ideology.

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

I believe the time has come for equal rights for everyone in this country, even for white people.

Equal opportunity for all, special privilege for none.

Equality is not in regarding different things similarly, equality is in regarding different things differently.

Everyone is born equally capable but lacks equal opportunity.

Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.

There should be no discrimination against languages people speak, skin color, or religion.

Now we Democrats believe that America is still the country of fair play, that we can come out of a small town or a poor neighborhood and have the same chance as anyone else, and it doesn't matter whether we are black or Hispanic, or disabled or women.

My feeling is, having lived in different classes, that people want equality of opportunity... that's the thing that makes me despair: the idea that people aren't given equality of opportunity.

We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments.

Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.

To realize democracy it is necessary to absolutely eliminate ... colour from all State and social policy, unless you would justify ... caste, wealth, rank, birth and education, as giving title to privileged treatment ...

To unequal privileges among members of the same society the spirit of our nation is, with one accord, adverse.

Whatever their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights.

Our goal is a classless society.

We are a nation without classes or special privileges.

Hereafter in the enlistment of men in the Army... no distinction whatsoever shall be made on account of race or color

The colored employees of the Government shall be treated precisely as the whites are treated. If they attend to their duty they will not be disturbed.

Here, no privileged orders – no factitious distinctions in society – no hereditary nobility – no royal prerogatives exist, to interpose barriers between the people, and to create distinct classifications in society. All men being considered as enjoying an equality of rights, the propriety and necessity of dispensing, without distinction, the blessings of education ….

In the long run it is more important to us as a nation to show the world that we believe in equality of opportunity, that we realize that any kind of segregation is discrimination whether it comes about because of race, color, or creed, and that we are determined to show the world that we believe in the things we preach.

… the color of the skin is a condition entirely to be disregarded … I have little patience with … any other tests than those of regularity, character, manhood, and intelligence.

All inequality that has no special utility to justify it is injustice.

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, “you are free to compete with all the others”, and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through the those gates.

We are building a country where a person's prospects are determined by their own initiative and hard work and not by the color of their skin, place of birth, gender, language, or income of their parents.