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

No such sentence is known in Aristotle. Wikiquote lists it under Misattributed. The thought is a compression of his account of distributive justice: Politics III.9 (1280a), where equality seems just, and is, but only for equals, and inequality seems just, and is, but only for unequals; Politics V.1 (1301a–b), on democrats and oligarchs who each take a partial equality or inequality for the whole; and Nicomachean Ethics V.3 (1131a), justice as a proportion, so that unequal persons should not have equal shares. The superlative form is modern. The earliest found is in Heinrich von Treitschke’s lectures on Politics, in the English translation by Blanche Dugdale and Torben de Bille (1916), arguing against universal suffrage, which appeals to ‘the time-honoured truth long ago laid down by Aristotle, that the greatest wrong is to equalize the unequal’ (vol. 2, p. 196). The current wording is credited, by Wikiquote and quotation sites, to Laurence J. Peter, who printed it as ‘Aristotle’s axiom’ in Peter’s People (1979); Wikiquote says it first appeared in 1974 in a Time magazine explanation of Aristotle’s politics, which could not be checked here. Justice Felix Frankfurter, dissenting in Dennis v. United States (1950), wrote that ‘a wise man’ had said there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals, without naming him.

Shared as Aristotle’s axiom, usually to argue against equal treatment or redistribution. On 12 September 2026 the self-improvement creator Jett Franzen (@jettfranzen) quoted it as Aristotle’s, in the form ‘The greatest inequality is treating unequal things equal’, in the description of a YouTube video titled ‘Humans are NOT equal’. Aristotle’s own discussion, in the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics, is about what justice is when people claim equal or unequal shares.

Treating people who differ in merit or ability as if they were the same is itself an injustice. Aristotle’s real point is narrower: equality is just between equals and unequal shares between unequals, and the hard question is in what respect people are equal.

Used as an ancient warrant for hierarchy, as if Aristotle had called equality the worst injustice. In Politics III.9 he says both sides see only part of justice: democrats think that people equal in one respect (free birth) are equal in all, oligarchs that people unequal in one respect (wealth) are unequal in all. In Politics V.1 he names both errors as causes of civil strife. He makes no ranking of ‘the worst form of inequality’.

Not Aristotle’s sentence. If you want his thought, cite Politics III.9 (1280a) or Nicomachean Ethics V.3 (1131a) in a translation, and note that he also defended natural slavery: his ‘unequals’ are not a neutral category.

• A misquotationThe greatest inequality is treating unequal things equal. Quoted as Aristotle’s by the self-improvement creator Jett Franzen (@jettfranzen) in the description of his YouTube video ‘Humans are NOT equal’, 12 September 2026. Where it was seen
• ShortenedAristotle’s axiom: The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal. The epigram as Laurence J. Peter printed it in Peter’s People (1979), according to Wikiquote and quotation sites; not checked against the book. Where it was seen
• ShortenedThe greatest wrong is to equalize the unequal. Heinrich von Treitschke, Politics, translated by Blanche Dugdale and Torben de Bille (1916), vol. 2, p. 196, given as a truth ‘laid down by Aristotle’. Where it was seen

• Felix Frankfurter, 1950: Dissenting in Dennis v. United States: ‘It was a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.’

Society, Politics, Morality

• There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. Oscar Wilde
• There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for. (misattributed) Albert Camus
• Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. (not found) Marilyn Monroe
• All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher. (misattributed) Lucretius
• Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. (misattributed) Seneca the Younger

• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle#Misattributed
• sententiaeantiquae.com/2019/03/23/fake-aristotle-fakely-rails-against-fighting-inequality
• archive.org/details/politics02treiuoft (Treitschke, Politics, 1916, vol. 2, p. 196)
• law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/339/162 (Dennis v. United States, Frankfurter dissenting)
• gutenberg.org/ebooks/6762 (Aristotle, Politics, tr. William Ellis: Book III, chapter 9)
• youtube.com/watch?v=BGdMm1poxOI (Jett Franzen, 12 September 2026; quotes it as Aristotle’s)

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” Attributed to Aristotle. No. It is not in Aristotle’s works, and who first wrote it is not known. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/worst-form-of-inequality/ (checked 20 October 2026).

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