Here at Bored Panda, we love to chit-chat about lighthearted topics, like how cute otters are or our favorite video games. But sometimes, it’s also necessary to stop for a few minutes and ponder more serious matters. We’re not just animals that exist on this planet to have fun; we’re human beings with a responsibility to each other and ourselves.
From the battle for women’s empowerment to Black Lives Matter, equal rights have been a rallying cry for activists who believe everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. While diversity exists in every society, it’s not always followed by equality. And even when a community is remarkably diverse, this doesn’t necessarily mean it is equal. Many equality quotes highlight these problems in society.
We need to talk about equality and bring about change. Only then can we build a world where everyone has access to equal opportunities to succeed, grow, and thrive. For decades, social movements and influential people have created slogans and quotes on equality.
They’re a form of protest art, often printed on posters, chanted at rallies, and painted on walls. Quotes on equality and justice can be powerful because they’re so simple: With just a few words, they encapsulate an idea that encourages people to join together in action.
There are many famous gender, racial, cultural, and LGBT equality quotes that are very powerful. So, here we are with some of the most renowned equality quotes from activists, politicians, philosophers, and great minds we should take a few moments to reflect on. Let us know your thoughts in the comments, and upvote the quotes that you find the most impactful.
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"A feminist is a person who believes in the power of women just as much as they believe in the power of anyone else. It's equality, it's fairness, and I think it's a great thing to be a part of." - Zendaya
"I speak not for myself but for those without voice... those who have fought for their rights... their right to live in peace, their right to be treated with dignity, their right to equality of opportunity, their right to be educated." - Malala Yousafzai
"Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development, and building good governance." - Kofi Annan
"The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: "It's a girl."" - Shirley Chisholm
"I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions." - Barack Obama
"Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it." - Frances Wright
"Equality is not in regarding different things similarly, equality is in regarding different things differently." - Tom Robbins
"Let us remember we are all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes belief in equality under the law, basic respect for public order, and the right of peaceful protest." - Barack Obama
"Ending discrimination and extending equality should always be a national priority." - Bill Shorten
"All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die." - Bob Dylan
"If we were to select the most intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and emotionally stable third of mankind, all races would be present." - Franz Boas
"All men are created equal, it is only men themselves who place themselves above equality." - David Allan Coe
"From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor's rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own." - Carl Schurz
"There should be no discrimination against languages people speak, skin color, or religion." - Malala Yousafzai
"In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently." - Harry A. Blackmun
"Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor." - Rita Dove
"We are not supposed to be all equal. Let's just forget that. We are supposed to have equal rights under law. If we do that, we have done enough." - Ben Stein
"Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation." - Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Who Quoted “This Equality Feels Like Oppression?”
Of many women’s equality quotes, one famous saying has always stood out. Here’s the full quote:
“When someone is accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
It’s still unknown who came up with this statement. Still, many public figures like labor activist Mark Caddo, Franklin Leonard, or Pennsylvania state legislator Brian Sims have been credited with creating it. At first glance, this might not seem like a gender equality quote, but it burst into the public’s eye due to an uproar about women in leadership roles.
In 2016, the CEOs of 27 huge companies announced that they would fill 50% of their top leadership roles with women by 2030. Surprisingly (or maybe unsurprising), not everybody was happy with this decision, and there was public outrage. Out of the blue, this equality quote began making the rounds to remind everyone that these much-needed steps toward equality aren’t oppressive. And that privileged people often face discomfort when faced with simple equity-based changes.
"I am sure that every one of my colleagues - Democrat, Republican, and Independent - agrees with that statement. That in the voting booth, everyone is equal." - Barbara Boxer
"Private religious speech can't be discriminated against. It has to be treated equally with secular speech." - Samuel Alito
"Social media are a catalyst for the advancement of everyone's rights. It's where we're reminded that we're all human and all equal. It's where people can find and fight for a cause, global or local, popular or specialized, even when there are hundreds of miles between them." - Queen Rania
"Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom." - Alexis de Tocqueville
"It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality." - Samuel Johnson
"The true and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms, but in mutual trust alone." - Pope John XXIII
"The basic Buddhist stand on the question of equality between the genders is age-old. At the highest tantric levels, at the highest esoteric level, you must respect women: every woman." - Dalai Lama
"The difference between equity and equality is that equality is everyone gets the same thing and equity is everyone gets the things they deserve." - DeRay McKesson
"Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole." - Mao Zedong
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways, equality and freedom of speech are a good thing." - Herodotus
"I believe the equal rights amendment is a necessity of life for all citizens. The cabinet sometimes felt that I shouldn't be so outspoken." - Betty Ford
"If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." - J. K. Rowling
"It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive." - Thomas Mann
"We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others." - Will Rogers
"The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it." - Chief Joseph
"You learn about equality in history and civics, but you find out life is not really like that." - Arthur Ashe
"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity." - Irving Kristol
"One of the things about equality is not just that you be treated equally to a man, but that you treat yourself equally to the way you treat a man." - Marlo Thomas
"You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality." - Zadie Smith
Why Are Dr. Martin Luther King’s Quotes About Equality So Popular?
MLK’s quotes about equality and his speeches and teachings are renowned. He was an influential person who championed human rights and acted as a leader of men. Everything he shared with the people was meant to motivate or inspire change in their minds. His civil rights activism helped lead change against the United States’s regressive and discriminatory racial practices.
His most famous quote from his 1963 speech was:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost." - Aristotle
"The man who didn't want his wife to work has been succeeded by the man who asks about her chances of getting a raise." - Earl Wilson
"A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." - Friedrich August von Hayek
"For a modern woman it is important to be supported and that there is equality in every aspect, and that it's not two halves that make a whole - it's two wholes that make a whole." - Katy Perry
"The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality." - Andrew Jackson
"No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer." - George Orwell
"Equal pay isn't just a women's issue; when women get equal pay, their family incomes rise and the whole family benefits." - Mike Honda
"Real equality is immensely difficult to achieve, it needs continual revision and monitoring of distributions. And it does not provide buffers between members, so they are continually colliding or frustrating each other." - Mary Douglas
"Achieving gender equality requires the engagement of women and men, girls and boys. It is everyone's responsibility." - Ban Ki-moon
"If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity." - John F. Kennedy
"Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact." - Honore de Balzac
"Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about us; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us." - Toni Morrison
"Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike." - Plato
"Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism." - Barry Goldwater
"We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter - and to write it in the books of law." - Lyndon B. Johnson
"No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men." - Muhammad Ali Jinnah
"As equality increases, so does the number of people struggling for predominance." - Mason Cooley
"Women have a lot to say about how to advance women's rights, and governments need to learn from that, listen to the movement and respond." - Charlotte Bunch
"Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal." - Aristotle
"If you have a dog, I must have a dog. If you have a rifle, I must have a rifle. If you have a club, I must have a club. This is equality." - Malcolm X
"His lordship may compel us to be equal upstairs, but there will never be equality in the servant's hall." - James M. Barrie
What Is the Most Famous Quote About Justice and Equality?
Equality is the fundamental right everyone deserves to have regardless of their religious, cultural, racial, or sexual orientation. When people are given equality or equity, it makes the world a more compassionate and well-rounded space to live in. One of the most popular equality quotes related to this is:
“We are all born equal-equally helpless and equally indebted to others for whatever our survival turns out to be worth.” — Cullen Hightower.
"More countries have understood that women's equality is a prerequisite for development." - Kofi Annan
"In the end, no segregationist scheme has withstood the force of a simple idea: equality under the law." - Eric Liu
"Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality, and fraternity as the principles of life." - B. R. Ambedkar
"The search for justice and security, the struggle for equality of opportunity, the quest for tolerance and harmony, the pursuit of human dignity - these are moral imperatives which we must work towards and think about on a daily basis." - Aga Khan IV
"Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying." - Mikhail Bakunin
"We are all different. Yet we are all God's children. We are all united behind this country and the common cause of freedom, justice, fairness, and equality. That is what unites us." - Barbara Boxer
"We will not achieve gender equality in the workplace until we fix our system of parental leave." - David Lammy
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." - Anatole France
"Sports is the common denominator in the world that brings everyone together. If there's any one place in the world where there is equality, it is probably sports. That was something that didn't always exist. We've come a long way in sports. Why can't society use sports as a way to bring people together and create change?" - Stephen M. Ross
"I think history repeats itself. There's a constant conversation between the oppressed and the oppressor. No matter what your field is, whether it's gender equality, the Time's Up movement, or diversity casting, it's always going to be a back-and-forth battle." - Michael B. Jordan
"True equality means holding everyone accountable in the same way, regardless of race, gender, faith, ethnicity - or political ideology." - Monica Crowley
"If we want to be proud to be from a country like America and all the things that we hang our hats on, like diversity, equality, land of the free and home of the brave, it's everybody's responsibility to ensure that everyone in the country is being afforded the same rights." - Megan Rapinoe
"I am a social democrat - I believe in pursuing greater equality and tackling social justice - but... you can't do that unless you have got a strong economy, unless you have got a vibrant business base earning the wealth that makes that possible." - Nicola Sturgeon
"I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality." - Alice Paul
"Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a time to honor the greatest champion of racial equality who taught a nation - through compassion and courage - about democracy, nonviolence, and racial justice." - Mark Pryor
"Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality - an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order." - Friedrich August von Hayek
"Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't carry just a piece of cloth to symbolize his belief in racial equality; he carried the American flag." - Adrian Cronauer
"The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because the law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." - Thomas Jefferson
"In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards." - Bertrand Russell
"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." - Alexis de Tocqueville
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." - Abraham Lincoln
"I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy - I don't disparage envy, but I don't accept it as legitimately my master." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"Again, it may be said, that to love justice and equality the people need no great effort of virtue; it is sufficient that they love themselves." - Maximilien Robespierre
"Until women learn to want economic independence, and until they work out a way to get this independence without denying themselves the joys of love and motherhood, it seems to me feminism has no roots." - Crystal Eastman
"I think at the heart of the pro-life movement is the idea that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights starting with life." - Mike Huckabee
"I want to work on respecting individuals' dignity. Equal rights, that's where my heart is. That means equal rights and benefits, and that's what we need." - Christine Gregoire
"When we reach the point where the women athletes are getting their pick of dates just as easily as the men athletes, then we've really and truly arrived. Parity at last!" - Billie Jean King
"I live in America. I have the right to write whatever I want. And it's equaled by another right just as powerful: the right not to read it. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people." - Brad Thor
"Unless a man is committed to the belief that all mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality." - Adam Clayton
"It will appear evident upon attentive consideration that equality of intellectual and physical advantages is the only sure foundation of liberty, and that such equality may best, and perhaps only, be obtained by a union of interests and cooperation in labor." - Frances Wright
"The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved." - Emma Goldman
"We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us." - Lionel Trilling
"Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal." - Jeane Kirkpatrick
"The word 'equality' shows up too much in our founding documents for anyone to pretend it's not the American way." - Martha Plimpton
"In the 1960s we were fighting to be recognized as equals in the marketplace, in marriage, in education and on the playing field. It was a very exciting, rebellious time." - Marlo Thomas
"The best partnerships aren't dependent on a mere common goal but on a shared path of equality, desire, and no small amount of passion." - Sarah MacLean
"The most important thing is the indigenous people are not vindictive by nature. We are not here to oppress anybody - but to join together and build Bolivia, with justice and equality." - Evo Morales
"Equality and development will not be achieved however if peace is not understood from women's point of view." - Jenny Shipley
"The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality." - Ruth Bader Ginsburg
"There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children are not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with." - Woodrow Wilson
"Nature has made men free and equal. The distinctions necessary for social order are only founded on general utility." - Marquis de Lafayette
"Reggae music is a music of integrity; reggae's consciousness was built on a message. My music speaks of love, equality and spirituality, and I would hope that one finds this integrity in my music." - Stephen Marley
How Do We Get to a Place of Equality?
After reading all these powerful quotes about social justice and human rights, it’s important to go out into the world and make a change. A diverse and accepting society isn’t a pipe dream; it can be a reality for all of us. Let us know in the comments what steps you take towards equality and what solutions you have to create an equal world. Share this article with your friends so that these beautiful messages of equality reach everyone.
….they’re is input and output; input is what goes in output is the result of that 24/7 24/7
….they’re is input and output; input is what goes in output is the result of that 24/7 24/7
