Megan Smith Quotes

America is not another word for Opportunity to all her sons.

Every American may have equal access to ice cream, but there's no guarantee that the outcome of eating ice cream will be equal.

As a senior at Princeton, I felt like the whole world was open to me. In our country, that's not a given. We aspire to be a place of equal opportunity, and yet where you're born determines your prospects.

Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? … Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anybody really think that they didn't get what we had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.

The gap between aspiration and reality could hardly be wider. Today, the United States has less equality of opportunity than almost any other advanced industrial country. Study after study has exposed the myth that America is a land of opportunity. This is especially tragic: While Americans may differ on the desirability of equality of outcomes, there is near-universal consensus that inequality of opportunity is indefensible.

We remain a country where a young person's chance of fulfilling their potential rests on the vagaries of where they were born and what their parents do, rather than their innate talent and ambition.

Everyone is born equally capable but lacks equal opportunity.

It's not a meritocracy until everyone starts with the same opportunities, is it?

We are also further than ever from equality of opportunity.

Clearly no one knows what leadership has gone undiscovered in women of all races, and in black and other minority men.

Public schools were designed as the great equalizers of our society - the place where all children could have access to educational opportunities to make something of themselves in adulthood.

Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.

The promise of the American Dream requires that we are all provided an equal opportunity to participate in and contribute to our nation.

We have to improve life, not just for those who have the most skills and those who know how to manipulate the system. But also for and with those who often have so much to give but never get the opportunity.

There's tons of people with talent; it's the system that's all screwed up.

I know a lot of incredibly, profoundly talented, skilled people that aren't given certain opportunities or any opportunities, and that aren't working.

Do we believe that the goal of government is to promote equal opportunity for all Americans to make the most of their lives? Or, do we now believe that government's role is to equalize the results of peoples lives?

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.

To me, there's so much talent in the world that's locked out for the wrong reasons, whether it's innovators at the highest end where we need to change the regulation systems, or whether it's the talented people who work here who the bureaucracy's holding back, or the amazing American people.

Early admission programs tend to advantage the advantaged.

If you get so unequal that people believe they don't have a chance, that the field isn't level for them and their children, that puts democracy at risk.

Is there so great a superfluity of men fit for high duties, that society can afford to reject the service of any competent person?

It is not fair that some people should have a better chance in life simply because of where they live.

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions — it only guarantees equality of opportunity.

We know what works. What works are the very opportunities that advantaged families provide for their children.