Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: That you are dreadfully like other people. – James Russell Lowell, “Democracy Address,” Birmingham, England, 6 October 1884
In America everybody is of 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, Unpopular Essays, 1950

