A Quote by James F. Cooper

Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition, and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery. Equality of rights is a peculiar feature of democracies. These rights are properly divided into civil and political, though even these definitions are not to be taken as absolute, or as literally exact.

James F. Cooper

Quote Topics

Absolute Civil Civilization Common Communities Condition Definitions Divided Equality Even Exact Exist Feature Found Incompatible Literally May Mean Misery Only Peculiar Political Practice Properly Rights Savage Sense Slightly Social State Taken Those Though

Quote Author

James F. Cooper
American - Writer
September 15, 1789 - September 14, 1851

Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.

James F. Cooper

While an equality of rights under a limited government is possible and an essential condition of individual freedom, a claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Whenever equality rights and religious rights collide, equality rights trump.

Vic Toews

Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

James Madison

The liberals of the eighteenth century, guided by the ideas of natural law and of the Enlightenment, demanded for everyone equality of political and civil rights... Nothing, however, is as ill-founded as the assertion of the alleged equality of all members of the human race.

Ludwig von Mises

Equality! Where is it, if not in education? Equal rights! They cannot exist without equality of instruction.

Frances Wright

The great paradox of the civil rights revolution is that instead of enforcing and expanding equality before the law, the revolution created differential rights based on race, gender and, any day now, sexual orientation. The great liberal revolution, centuries in the making, that brought forth equality in law has been overthrown. In its place we see rising a new feudal legal order of status-based rights.

Paul Craig Roberts

Well, my view before was a Western view, and I certainly understand marriage equality and civil rights, equal rights for all, but having visited developing nations and some of the poorest nations in the world, I realize how deep it goes and how much work really needs to be done to create equality for all.

Jason Mraz

The rights of one sex, political and otherwise, are the same as those of the other sex, and this equality of rights ought to be fully recognized.

Leland Stanford

It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality of rights never mean the exclusion should take place on themselves.

Thomas Paine

I have supported civil rights activity in my state. I have done my job with integrity, equality, and fairness for all.

Jeff Sessions

I've supported civil rights activity in my state. I have done my job with integrity, equality and fairness for all.

Jeff Sessions

Popular privileges are consistent with a state of society in which there is great inequality of position. Democratic rights, on the contrary, demand that there should be equality of condition as the fundamental basis of the society they regulate.

Benjamin Disraeli

Among the features peculiar to the political system of the United States is the perfect equality of rights which it secures to every religious sect. [...] Equal laws protecting equal rights, are found as they ought to be presumed, the best guarantee of loyalty, and love of country; as well as best calculated to cherish that mutual respect and good will among citizens of every religious denomination which are necessary to social harmony and most favorable to the advancement of truth.

James Madison

Measure her rights and duties by the unerring standard of moral being… and then the truth will be self-evident, that whatever it is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but human rights – I know nothing of men’s rights and women’s rights; for in Christ Jesus, there is neither male nor female. It is my solemn conviction, that, until this principle of equality is recognised and embodied in practice, the Church can do nothing effectual for the permanent reformation of the world.