Sustainable development cannot be achieved without addressing the structural inequalities that persist in our societies.

Inequality is devastating and it's extreme.

No set of questions is more fundamental to sociology than those about inequality—what is it, why is it, how does it come about, and what can we do to change it.

The Bible is a collective attempt by humanity to solve the deepest problems that we have. The deepest of all problems that we have is the problem of self-consciousness. The unique predicament of human beings is that we are self-conscious. Not only is it true that we are mortal and that we die, but most crucial is the reality that we know we will die.

Inequality is a double-edged sword.

Even equality is a deeply problematic concept. It has its origins in Christianity, where it is conceived as equality before God. When you transfer that into a competitive commercial society, it becomes elusive, even deceptive. Really, the drama of the modern world is the collision between the promise of equality and the fact of structural inequality…

Couldn’t agree more… equality is one of the founding values of the Constitution… and we will never be able to heal the wounds… which are still very raw [unless] we… address substantive inequality in all spheres.

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

I believe that inequality is not the product of capitalism but the product of the fact that in a group of two men and one woman, one of the men will be taller and will have straighter teeth than the other, and he'll get the woman. Thus I believe that economics isn't the basis of inequality, straight teeth are!

Injustice in this world is not something comparative; the wrong is deep, clear, and absolute in each private fate.

The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life. The fight with nature which primitive man has to wage for his bodily existence attains in this modern form its latest transformation.

But these two have been intractable problems for decades, even a century. Their root causes have been social injustice and economic injustice. Brilliant minds and experts have been harnessed to tackle these problems. And still the problems persist.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.

The problem is deep. It is gigantic in extent, and chaotic in detail. And I do not believe that it will be solved until there is a kind of cosmic discontent enlarging in the bosoms of people of good will all over this nation.