Noah Webster Quotes

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.

There is no obstacle in the path of young people who are poor or members of minority groups that hard work and preparation cannot cure.

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.

Equality of opportunity means the achievers must be allowed to achieve.

We [Chicago] are known as the city that works. You gotta make sure it works for everybody and not just a few.

Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions.

Education levels the playing field, allowing everyone to compete.

I grew up believing in meritocracy and the American dream. My parents came here from India. They had no connections. My brother and I went to public schools, and both of us succeeded.

Fairness is not the end result, it's the opportunity. And everybody in America today has the opportunity to get ahead.

All men will commence in their present rank and promotion will be open to all men alike, without any distinctions or qualifications, political or otherwise.

I want to prove that you don't have to come from Oxford University or Rada - and you don't have to have parents that support you - to succeed.

Now, as a nation, we don't promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That's an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up.

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.

I care about education for everyone, not just the elite.

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.

Unless the great majority of Americans not only have, but believe they have, a fair chance, the better American future will be dangerously compromised.

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.

Economic inequality is less troubling if you live in a country where any child, no matter how humble his or her origins, can grow up to be president.

This is what America is about when it comes to understanding that it is equal opportunity versus equal achievement. Each and every one of us has the opportunity for greatness in this country.

We should all have the opportunity to at least get a basic education and feel that you are worthy of something in life.

The American dream, to me, means having the opportunity to achieve, because I don't think you should be guaranteed anything other than opportunity.

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.

Our aim is a totally new and just constitutional dispension in which every inhabitant will enjoy equal rights, treatment and opportunity in every sphere of endeavour—constitutional, social and economic.

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