Life & Wisdom Quote by Tom Robbins

Robbins comes in sideways, like he usually does: he takes a word that’s been sanded down by political speeches and bumper stickers and re-sharpens it into something slightly dangerous. The line refuses the lazy version of fairness where everyone gets the same slice, the same rule, the same moral verdict. That kind of “equality” is neat, measurable, and often cruel. His sentence argues for a messier ethic: real parity depends on noticing difference, not pretending it isn’t there.

The craft is in the pivot. “Regarding different things similarly” sounds virtuous until you hear the hidden machinery: sameness as a bureaucratic fantasy, a way institutions avoid responsibility. It’s the logic behind colorblindness, behind one-size-fits-all schooling, behind workplace “neutrality” that conveniently rewards whoever already matches the default setting. Robbins flips the frame: if circumstances, bodies, histories, or needs diverge, then identical treatment doesn’t produce equal outcomes; it produces predictable winners.

Subtextually, it’s also a jab at moral absolutism. Robbins, the exuberant anti-dogmatist, distrusts systems that flatten human weirdness into categories. The line smuggles in a plea for imagination: equality isn’t a spreadsheet; it’s an art of discernment. That’s why it lands with particular force in contemporary fights over disability accommodations, gendered medical care, and wealth inequality. The point isn’t to create special rules for the sake of favoritism; it’s to admit that fairness requires context, and context requires attention. Equality, in his telling, isn’t symmetry. It’s precision.