Confucius Quotes

To abolish class distinctions means abolishing a part of yourself.

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

On the battlefield, there is no distinction between upper and lower class.

I reject absolutely the idea that people should know their place, and know their class.

The main force pushing toward reduction in inequality has always been the diffusion of knowledge and the diffusion of education.

Every society naturally divides itself into classes. The author of nature has bestowed on some greater capacities than on others--birth, education, talents and wealth, create distinctions among men as visible and of as much influence as titles, stars and garters. In every society, men of this class will command a superior degree of respect--and if the government is so constituted as to admit but few to exercise the powers of it, it will, according to the natural course of things, be in their hands.

Aristocracy is naturally abhorrent to me, and adored equality is my idol.

Our goal is a classless society.

In a superior civilization, as, for example, that of the Indo-Aryans, the being who is without a characteristic form or caste... would emerge as a pariah. In this respect America is a society of pariahs. There is a role for pariahs. It is to be subjected to beings whose form and internal laws are precisely defined. Instead the modern pariahs seek to become dominant themselves and to exercise their dominion over all the world.

But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here.

For many centuries Chinese society has been free of class distinctions such as are found even in advanced democracies.

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

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

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.

To realize democracy it is necessary to absolutely eliminate ... colour from all State and social policy, unless you would justify ... caste, wealth, rank, birth and education, as giving title to privileged treatment ...

In this country there is no rank but rank mutton.

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.

I am no leveller; I look upon an artificial equality as equally pernicious with a factitious aristocracy; both depressing the energies and checking the enterprise of a nation.

We have been taught by experience the danger of the levelling spirit.

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.

There seems to be an idea abroad in this land as well as in others, that a certain class of people are for the purpose of producing servants for another class of people, and that this servant-producing class has no right to give their children an education that is calculated to elevate them above the position of their parents. We are not in sympathy with this idea.

We cannot hope to succeed in directing this increasingly complex civilization unless we can draw all the talent of leadership from the whole people. One civilization after another has been wrecked upon the attempt to secure sufficient leadership from a single group or class. If we would prevent the growth of class distinctions and would constantly refresh our leadership with the ideals of our people, we must draw constantly from the general mass. The full opportunity for every boy and girl to rise through the selective processes of education can alone secure to us this leadership.

To be prosperous is not to be superior, and should form no barrier between men. Wealth ought not to secure the prosperous the slightest consideration.

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 ….