Thomas Piketty Quotes

When people are educated, class distinction disappears.

Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.

A basic element of the American dream is equal access to education as the lubricant of social and economic mobility.

If education does not create a need for the best in life, then we are stuck in an undemocratic, rigid caste society.

Education ... is the great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balance wheel of the social machinery.

Education … is the great equalizer of all the other conditions of men.

As Americans, I think we really believe that with the meritocracy that exists in our country, the equality of opportunity is so important to the foundation of our culture and our society.

Outside of the family, education is the greatest determinant of social mobility.

I believe education is the great equalizer.

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.

Education promotes equality and lifts people out of poverty. It teaches children how to become good citizens. Education is not just for a privileged few, it is for everyone. It is a fundamental human right.

Broadband access is the great equalizer, leveling the playing field so that every willing and able person, no matter their station in life, has access to the information and tools necessary to achieve the American Dream.

Conservatives often say that we should care not about equality of outcomes but about equality of opportunity.

Centuries have elapsed since schools were first established.... Because learning was viewed as the exclusive province of the samurai and his superiors, farmers, artisans, merchants and women have neglected it altogether.... There shall, in the future, be no community with an illiterate family, nor a family with an illiterate person .... Hereafter ... every man shall, of his own accord, subordinate all other matters to the education of his children.

The intelligent quest is for the free society with equality of opportunity. The quest for equality of result is the path to the widest equality of all: despotism.

A memorable change must be made in the system of education and knowledge must become so general as to raise the lower ranks of society nearer the to the higher.

Our goal is a classless society.

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 a country where there is no privileged class, genius and industry may attain the highest honors.

America is a young country, with small inequalities of property, and without manufactures. Few people are here dependent on the rich, for every man has an opportunity of becoming rich himself…the people of New England enjoy an equality of condition unknown in any other part of the world.

Brahmins cannot hope to claim a high and superior status forever. Times are changing. They have to come down.

We once had a society stratified by bloodlines, in which the Protestant Establishment was in one class, immigrants were in another and African-Americans were in another. Now we live in a society stratified by education. In many ways this system is more fair, but as the information economy matures, we are learning it comes with its own brutal barriers to opportunity and ascent.

I have tried to suggest that injustice is not necessary economic -- that the economics can work, and has often worked, when the constituency for it is animated. The politics of equality -- that is a little harder.

American greatness can be further unlocked if opportunity is expanded to all people within its borders.

Education levels the playing field, allowing everyone to compete.