Equal opportunity

“ The principle of equal opportunity was, no doubt, met only in a very rough and dubious fashion; but so favorable became the conditions in this respect that men came to persuade themselves in the course of the eighteenth century that a substantially equitable allotment of opportunities would result from the abrogation of all prerogatives other than the ownership of goods. ”

“ Is the fox, then, or the financier, the highest animal in creation? Bah!
Humanity never bunked itself so thoroughly as{156} with the bunk of equality, even qualified down to “equal opportunity”.
In living life, we are all born with different powers, and different degrees of power: some higher, some lower. The only thing to do is honorably to accept it, and to live in the communion of power. Is it not better to serve a man in whom power lives, than to clamour for equality with Mr. ”

“ His career stands for and illustrates the greatest of our national principles,—the principle of equality,—not the equality of birth, not the equality of social station, but the equality of opportunity. ”

“ This broad natural equality of sentiment, rooted in equal material opportunities, equal education, equal laws, equal opportunities, and equal access to all positions of honor and trust, has just sufficient inequality mixed with it—in the shape of greater or less mental endowments, higher or lower degrees of culture, larger or smaller material possessions, and so on—to keep it sweet and human ”

“ It’s time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a “Mad Men” episode, and give every woman the opportunity she deserves. ”

“ We are in no vain chase of an equality which would eliminate all individual initiative, and check all progress, by ignoring differences of capacity and strength, and rating muscles equal to brains. But we are in pursuit of equal laws, and a fairer chance of leading happy lives than humanity in general ever had yet. ”

“ The right way, the safe way, is so clear, the path of duty is so straight and simple, that we who are equally interested with yourselves in the result, conjure you to act not for the passing hour, not with reference to transient benefits, but to do now the one grand deed that shall mark the progress of the century—proclaim Equal Rights to All. ”

“ Let us put the canon of equality in a different shape, namely, that there should always be a sufficient reason for any difference in the treatment of our fellows. This rule does not imply that I should act in all cases as though all men were equal in character or mind, but that my action should in all cases be justified by some appropriate consideration. ”

“ Would he be admitted to an equal share in your political rights?—would he ever be allowed to cross the threshold of your doors?—would any of you give your daughter to his son, or your son to his daughter?—would you, in any one particular, admit him to the footing of equality which any man with a white skin would claim, whose ability and worth had so raised him from the lower degrees of the social scale. ”

“ Real and comprehensive knowledge, physical and moral, equally and impartially given by education, and by all other means to both sexes, is the key to such higher enjoyments....
“Demand with mild but unshrinking firmness, perfect equality with men: demand equal civil and criminal laws, an equal system of morals, and, as indispensable to these, equal political laws, to afford you an equal chance of happiness with men, from the development and exercise of your faculties.” ”

“ Now, madam, I am very diffident about making such a proposal to one in every respect my equal, and, I have no doubt, more than my equal in some things; but if he were not my equal, there would be an end to what I desire in the project. In fact, to make the mere difference of age the question of superiority between us, is my plan. We should live together precisely on the terms of equality. ”

“ Doubtless the consideration shown me is a recognition of the fact that I have been a life-long advocate of the advancement of women through the agencies of equality in education, equality in employment, equality in wages, equality in property-rights and personal liberty, in short, a fair, open, equal field in the struggle for life. ”

“ Is it a dream, then, that all men should ever be free and equal? It is at least evident that here ethical notions have been interjected into social relations, with the result that we have been taught to think of free and equal units willingly serving each other. ”

“ If it suited us to go to school to the Pine Processionary, we should soon see the inanity of our levelling and communistic theories. Equality is a magnificent political catchword, but little more. Where is it, this equality of ours? In our social groups, could we find as many as two persons exactly equal in strength, health, intelligence, capacity for work, foresight and all the other gifts which are the great factors of prosperity? ”

“ The moral regeneration of mankind will only really commence, when the most fundamental of the social relations is placed under the rule of equal justice, and when human beings learn to cultivate their strongest sympathy with an equal in rights and in cultivation. ”

“ If we take rights to pertain to results, and then say that rights must be equal, we come to say that men have a right to be equally happy, and so on in all the details. Rights should be equal, because they pertain to chances, and all ought to have equal chances so far as chances are provided or limited by the action of society. This, however, will not produce equal results, but it is right just because it will produce unequal results—that is, results which shall be proportioned to the merits of individuals. ”

“ It is the plainest corollary from the doctrine of the natural equality of man, that when I see a man, or a class of men, who are not equal to myself in opportunities, in gifts, in means of improvement, or in motives and incitements to an elevated character and an exemplary life,—I say, it is the plainest corollary that I should desire to elevate those men to an equality with myself. ”

“ I prate not of the word Equality I know, that until Man attains Perfection, Equality is quite impossible; But give to all that pressing human right, The right to live, to work and to enjoy The recompense which is the due of toil, And opportunity to claim it, too. ”

“ This is our equality, or herein we are equal, in that we, I as well as you and you and all of you, are active or "labor" each one for the rest; in that each of us is a laborer, then. The point for us is not what we are for the State (viz., citizens) , not our citizenship therefore, but what we are for each other,—viz., that each of us exists only through the other, who, caring for my wants, at the same time sees his own satisfied by me. ”

“ Liberty and fraternity are words while equality is a fact. Equality should be the great human formula—social equality, for while individuals have varying values, each must have an equal share in the social life ”

“ In whatever light it may appear to others, to me it appears beautiful indeed, to see a just and an impartial equality reign, so that the rich and the poor may share an equal privilege, and have all their wants supplied. ”

“ When it ordains us to love our neighbour as ourselves, what else is taught but that, in the right choice, equality (be it our own or that of others) shall fall with equal weight into the balance, from which follows the subordination of the single individual to the good of the collective whole ”

“ We should do everything that can be done, by law or otherwise, to keep the avenues of occupation, of employment, of work, of interest, so open that there shall be, so far as it is humanly possible to achieve it, a measurable? equality of opportunity; an equality of opportunity for each man to show the stuff that is in him. When it comes to reward, let each man, within the limits set by a sound and far-sighted morality, get what, by his energy, intelligence, thrift, courage, he is able to get, with the opportunity open. ”

“ He then has every motive to excite him to exertion, and to animate him in perseverance. He knows that if he is treated badly, he can exchange his employer for one who will better estimate his service; and that whatever he earns is his, to be distributed by himself as he pleases, among his wife and children, and friends, or enjoyed by himself. In a word, he feels that he is a free agent, with rights, and privileges, and sensibilities.
"Wherever the option exists to employ, at an equal hire, free or slave labor, the former will be decidedly preferred, for the reasons already assigned. ”

“ It is true that in his Republic almost all the social theories which have been deduced from the modern proclamation of equality are elaborated. There was to be a community of property, and also a community of wives and children. The equality of the sexes was insisted on to the extent of living in common, identical education and pursuits, equal share in all labors, in occupations, and in government. ”

“ You have carried out, moreover, the doctrines of our most advanced philosophers; you have absolute equality before the law, competitive examination among the young for the best start in life, with equal chances wherever equality is possible; and again, perfect freedom and full legal equality as regards the relations of the sexes. ”

“ Thus, at the very beginning, did the fathers see the necessity of the universal application of the great principle of equal rights to all, in order to produce the desired result—a harmonious union and a homogeneous people. ”

“ If, then, it is, as it must be, the ideal aim of social arrangements generally to enable each to raise his capacities to their practical maximum, and adjust his desires and his expectations to the practical possibilities of attainment, "relative equality of opportunity," firstly in education and secondly in practical life, is a formula which accurately expresses the means by which this end is to be secured ”

“ Unless opinions favourable to democracy and to aristocracy, to property and to equality, to co-operation and to competition, to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and individuality, to liberty and discipline, and all the other standing antagonisms of practical life, are expressed with equal freedom, and enforced and defended with equal talent and energy, there is no chance of both elements obtaining their due ”

“ For example, it is now two full generations since the guarantee of equal maintenance for all placed women in a position of economic independence and consequent complete control of their relations to men. ”

“ They took the phrase that all men were created equal and left out the implied kicker that equality was in the sight of God and before the law. They wanted an equality with the greatest men without giving up their drive toward mediocrity, and they meant to have it. ”

“ Equality in work means simply, respect for every kind of work done, and contempt for none except for him who does no work at all! And lastly the word 'Fraternity.' Glorious word, meaning so much!—holding suggestions of peace, joy and purity in its mere utterance! ”

“ Having during the past decade closely observed, and in some measure shared in, the discussion of advanced sociological thought, I maintain with confidence the principles of equal freedom, not only in their essential truth, but in the leading applications I have made of them. ”

“ What is called "equality of opportunity" is of course not real equality, even of opportunity, so long as we retain inheritance of private property and better education for the children of the well-to-do. ”

“ Let our objective be common, let our Hearts be one, we shall spend our day in this equality.
Once this is achieved then we can proceed to fight to achieve goals before us. Any collective work needs this connecting of minds as a first step. ”

“ But the goal thus defined implies methods different from that of some advocates of equality. They propose at once to assume the non-existence of a disagreeable difficulty, and to take men as equal in a sense in which they are not, in fact, equal. To me the problem appears to be, not the instant introduction of a new system, but a necessarily long and very gradual process of education directed towards the distant goal of making men equal in the desirable sense; and that problem, I add, is in the main a moral problem. ”

“ You can base the demand for the equal division of the products of labor on that principle of equality only, and if we are all equal, then there is no reason why we should live in houses of different architecture, why we should wear different clothing, why we should have a variety of meals, why one man should not have just as good a right to the love of a certain girl as any and all other men, and why one girl should not have just as fair a claim to the love of any man she may select as any other girl has. ”

“ The equality of opportunity, which is the pride and promise of modern society, had its beginnings in those early days when the gate of emergence from lower class conditions was so seldom opened far anyone to pass out to where the ascent of Parnassus might quicken his ambition. ”

“ Equality of all mankind was their watchword—perfect equality in all things—equality in possessions, and equality in position and influence, and equality in duties, resulting in equality in happiness and contentment.
The world belonged to all alike, and must be equally divided. Each man's labour was the property, not of himself, but of the State which fed and clothed him, and must be applied, not to his own aggrandisement, but to the enrichment of the race. ”

“ In mixed companies with your equals (for in mixed companies all people are to a certain degree equal) , greater ease and liberty are allowed; but they too have their bounds within ‘bienseance’. There is a social respect necessary: you may start your own subject of conversation with modesty, taking great care, however, ‘de ne jamais parler de cordes dans la maison d’un pendu.— [Never to mention a rope in the family of a man who has been hanged] —Your words, gestures, and attitudes, have a greater degree of latitude, though by no means an unbounded one. ”