Equality (n.) was lost with the incoming of the ideas of property, for from property arose civil society and with property came in inequality.
Equality (n.) is a constant struggle — The nature of things continually tends to the destruction of equality.
Equality (n.) is not found in nature but made by convention: the compact replaces physical inequality with a moral and legitimate equality.
Equality (n.) needs constant legislation precisely because the force of circumstances tends constantly to destroy it.
Equality (n.) does not mean identical wealth, but that no citizen is rich enough to buy another and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself.
Equality (n.) of rights springs from the preference each man gives himself: the general will is always right because every voter reads "each" as meaning him.
Equality (n.) is impossible to achieve in practice, but it is for this very reason that the force of the legislature must always tend to maintain it.
Equality (n.) in its conventional form is the first law of every society: no society without exchange, no exchange without a common measure, no common measure without equality.
Equality (n.) is real and indestructible in nature, vain and chimerical in the civil state — the very means meant to maintain it destroy it, adding the community's power to the strongest's.