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Humanity can not be made equal by declarations on paper. Unless the material conditions for equality exist, it is worse than mockery to pronounce men equal.

— Voltairine de Cleyre In Defense of Emma Goldman and the Right of Expropriation (1893)

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Equality

More quotes by Voltairine de Cleyre

As to the American tradition of non-meddling, Anarchism asks that it be carried down to the individual himself.

Anarchism & American Traditions (1908)

The love of material ease has been, in the mass of men and permanently speaking, always greater than the love of liberty.

Anarchism & American Traditions (1908)

Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never.

The Economic Tendency of Freethought (1890)

I would rather, much rather, be illegitimate according to the statutes of men, than illegitimate according to the unchanging law of Nature.

Sex Slavery (1890)

Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man's determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations.

Anarchism & American Traditions (1908)

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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: Voltairine de Cleyre (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.