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.
#81
"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
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#82
"We will not achieve gender equality in the workplace until we fix our system of parental leave." - David Lammy
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#83
"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
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#84
"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
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#85
"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
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#86
"True equality means holding everyone accountable in the same way, regardless of race, gender, faith, ethnicity - or political ideology." - Monica Crowley
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#87
"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
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#88
"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
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#89
"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
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#90
"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
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#91
"I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality, and fraternity." - B. R. Ambedkar
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#92
"Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes." - Khalil Gibran
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#93
"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
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#94
"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
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#95
"The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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#96
"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
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#97
"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
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#98
"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
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#99
"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
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#100
"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.
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