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We are not yet speaking about equality if we have not yet spoken about equal grievability, or the equal attribution of grievability. Grievability is a defining feature of equality. Those whose grievability is not assumed are those who suffer inequality—unequal value.

— Judith Butler The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (2020)

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More quotes by Judith Butler

Nonviolence is not an absolute principle, but an open-ended struggle with violence and its countervailing forces.

The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (2020)

Lives matter in the sense that they assume physical form within the sphere of appearance; lives matter because they are to be valued equally.

The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (2020)

We must fight those who are committed to destruction, without replicating their destructiveness. Understanding how to fight in this way is the task and the bind of a nonviolent ethics and politics.

The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (2020)

Nonviolence does not necessarily emerge from a pacific or calm part of the soul. Very often it is an expression of rage, indignation, and aggression.

The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (2020)

Perhaps the promise of phallus is always dissatisfying in some way.

The Lesbian Phallus and the Morphological Imaginary (1993)

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Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.

Mikhail Bakunin The Red Association (1870)

The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.

Milton Friedman

It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.

Felix Frankfurter

It is not true that equality is a law of nature. nature has made nothing equal, her sovereign law is subordination and dependence.

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues Reflections and Maxims (1746)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Judith Butler (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.