Justice and Equality

Laws are like spider’s webs: if some poor weak creature come up against them, it is caught; but a bigger one can break through and get away.

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism: ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or any other controlling private power.

No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities.

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.

The history of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed-upon myths of its conquerors.

The majority has the might—more’s the pity—but it hasn’t the right. . . . The minority is always right.

To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.

However sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group’s greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, class, religion or all four. However far it may expand, the progression inevitably rests on unequal power and airtight roles within the family.

A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes there is no virtue but on his own side.

Shall we judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely.

As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it—whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

No prejudice has even been able to prove its case in the court of reason.

Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity; the female sex.

The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.

It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

Our nation is waging a war on a radical network of terrorists—not on a religion, and not a civilization. As we wage this war to defend our principles, we must live up to those principles ourselves. And one of the deepest commitments of America is tolerance. No one should be treated unkindly because of the color of their skin or the content of their creed. No one should be unfairly judged by appearance or ethnic background, or religious faith.

I think if the people of this country can be reached with the truth, their judgment will be in favor of the many, as against the privileged few.

Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.

The injustice of defeat lies in the fact that its most innocent victims are made to look like heartless accomplices.

Sometimes Virtue starves, while Vice is fed.

In his efforts to escape from ugliness and unhappiness the rich man intensifies both. Every new yard of West End creates a new acre of East End.

The tyranny that forbids you to make the road with pick and shovel is worse than that which prevents you from lolling along it in a carriage and pair.