Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me saying funny things to the stars.
James M. BarrieRead
His lordship may compel us to be equal upstairs, but there will never be equality in the servants' hall.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the illusion of equality, particularly in social hierarchies, suggesting that true equality is difficult to achieve in practice.
James M. Barrie’s quote illustrates the gap between theoretical equality and the practical realities of social class divisions. While society may impose ideals of equality, especially in formal settings, the underlying hierarchies and distinctions, particularly in contexts like servitude, reveal that true equality is often unattainable in day-to-day interactions. This reflects deep philosophical questions about the nature of equality and the societal structures that perpetuate inequality.
Themes
EqualitySocial HierarchyPhilosophyClassServantsSociety
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on social justice, one might use this quote to emphasize the gap between theory and reality.
More from James M. Barrie
All quotes →The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.
James M. BarrieRead
Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own.
James M. BarrieRead
It was then that Hook bit him. Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter.
James M. BarrieRead
But the years came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little dust in the box in which she had kept her toys.
James M. BarrieRead
Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.
James M. BarrieRead
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I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the 'Yale News.'—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the 'well-rounded man.' This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.
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the average man does not want to be free. he simply wants to be safe.
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Indolence and melancholy: Each generates the other. If one can speak of such feeble passions as generating anything.
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