Egalitarianism Quotes

Every true thinker for himself is so far like a monarch; he is absolute, and recognizes nobody above him. His judgments, like the decrees of a monarch, spring from his own sovereign power and proceed directly from himself. He takes as little notice of authority as a monarch does of a command; nothing is valid unless he has himself authorized it. On the other hand, those of vulgar minds, who are swayed by all kinds of current opinions, authorities, and prejudices, are like the people which in silence obey the law and commands.

Every Man A King

The profuseness of the Arabian learning, the multiplicity of the departments into which it entered, its zeal, the enormous proportions of the resulting literature, the vast libraries, the schools, the lecture rooms with their thousands of students, the universities, the institutions devoted to special sciences, the observatories and laboratories so royally equipped, the schools of logic and grammar, the whole attractive republic of letters, in which princes mingled with the sons of tradesmen or mechanics, while court favorites vied with impoverished authors for the honors of literature, all the ardor of a great intellectual movement passing before our eyes under Oriental guise, dispose the mind to enthusiastic judgments.

Egalitarians create the most dangerous inequality of all - inequality of power. Allowing politicians to determine what all other human beings will be allowed to earn is one of the most reckless gambles imaginable. Like the income tax, it may start off being applied only to the rich but it will inevitably reach us all.

The law is equal before all of us; but we are not all equal before the law

The ideal of many ideologies in our time has, frankly, become a world of perfect safety, devoid of risk or failure, with neither the glory of victory nor the shame of defeat. Too often these days, we build downwards. We design our standards to ensure no one will lose; we preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre.

America should be ... a republic in which every citizen is a sovereign, but in which no one cares or dares to wear a crown.

Nobody should consider himself superior to another nor do him harm.

The greatest fallacy of democracy is that everyone's opinion is worth the same

Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; that until there is no longer any first-class and second-class citizens of any nation; that until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all, without regard to race -- until that day, the dreams of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained

Envy is the basis of democracy.

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.

Either order in the cosmos is real, or all is chaos. If we are adrift in chaos, then the fragile egalitarian doctrines and emancipating programs of the revolutionary reformers have no significance; for in a vortex of chaos, only force and appetite signify.

Envy is always referred to by its political alias, 'social justice’.

I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experiences.

The truly proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors. The first he does not admit of: the last he does not concern himself about.

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association-the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

The vocabulary of the political left is fascinating. For example, it is considered to be 'materialistic' and 'greedy' to want to keep what you have earned. But it is 'idealistic' to want to take away what someone else has earned and spend it for your own political benefit or to feel good about yourself.

From the American Revolution right up to the Second World War, the U.S. was more likely to provoke suspicion among members of the British establishment than deferential approval. It was seen - with good cause - not just as a potential rival for empire, but also as dangerously egalitarian, worryingly innovatory, and excessively democratic.

The Communists have no need to introduce free love; it has existed almost from time immemorial.

The necessary consequence of an egalitarian program is the decidedly inegalitarian creation of a ruthless power elite.

For men are not equal: thus speaks justice.

In New Zealand, we have a thing called 'tall poppy syndrome,' which, you might not have heard of it, but it's essentially where - it happens in small populations usually, but can actually happen in the U.K. - where, if someone sticks out, they get their head cut off because they are being outside the ordinary or they are showing off.

For me, Westernization is not about consuming fanciful goods; it's about a system of free speech, democracy, egalitarianism and respect for the people's rights and dignity.

The basis of a democratic and a republican form of government is a fundamental law favoring an equal or rather a general distribution of property. It is not necessary nor possible that every citizen should have exactly an equal proportion of lands and goods, but the laws of such a state should require an equal distribution of intestate estates, and bar all perpetuities. Such laws occasion constant revolutions of property, and thus hold out to all men equal motives to vigilance and industry.