Iris Murdoch Quotes

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.

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.

No one enjoys being equal.

… all men have equal rights; but not to equal things.

Looking for equality everywhere is a huge mistake because equals are terrible and boring. But a sense of fairness and justice is a totally different thing and a much more complex thing.

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

We are not supposed to be all equal. Let's just forget that. We are supposed to have equal rights under law. If we do that, we have done enough.

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

I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.

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

Equal Rights for All, Special Privileges for None.

Equality is a monster.

Rights that were not open to all alike would be no rights.

… the great equalizer.

Equal doesn't mean identical.

Equal opportunity for all, special privilege for none.

Put simply, we must always remember that separate but equal is not equal.

Equality, equality, equality. I'm all about equality, that's the main thing and the only thing I'm about.

All some folks want is their fair share and yours.

There's never going to be a system that is fair to everyone.

All sports must be treated on the basis of equality.

We live in a world where equality is pretty important.

If you have a dog, I must have a dog. If you have a rifle, I must have a rifle. If you have a club, I must have a club. This is equality.

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.