William Godwin Quotes

Our goal is a classless society.

All social institutions should aim at the moral, intellectual and physical improvement of the most numerous and poorest class. All privileges of birth to be abolished without exception. The task of each be according to his capacity, the wealth of each be according to his works.

We are a nation without classes or special privileges.

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.

Middle America believes in fair play, an equal opportunity to succeed or to fail.

I don't believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.

At Cambridge, there was a completely unintimidating culture, and there were no class divisions among the students.

I've always felt that, in America, we're all equal. I don't care what you make or what kind of car you drive. You're not better than me.

If you don't like affirmative action, what is your plan to guarantee a level playing field of opportunity?

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

We must be thoroughly democratic and patronize everybody without distinction of class.

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

Principles which united American liberals for generations, now divide me from some who seek equality of result and who sanction the preferences imposed by government to attain it.

Matters goeth not well to pass in England, nor shall not do till everything be in common … that there be no greater masters than we be.

Human beings are no longer born to their place in life

There is nothing in the Lawes or Customes of England, which excludes any the meanest man’s Childe, from arriving to the highest Offices in the this Kingdom

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

We believe in a government that trusts people and doesn't limit where you finish because of where you started.

Everybody has his place; everybody is equal. Treated equally, equal standing, equal rights and status.

I want my kids to grow up in a world where everybody gets a fair shot.

To be sure Plato did not favor 'affirmative action' to fill political and military offices in his own society; nor did he enroll women in his school.

But at the end of the day, the lottery of birth shouldn't determine your value to the world.

I feel passionately that the opportunities I have had should be available to everyone.

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.