Equality in people is impossible because of their different natures, life contents, and destinies. On the other hand, the equality of everybody with everybody else in an enslaved mass, such as we find in the great oriental despotisms, applies only to certain specific aspects of existence—political or economic aspects, for example—never to the total personality. … For innate qualities, personal relations, and decisive experiences inevitably make for some sort of uniqueness and irreplaceability in both the individual's self-evaluation and his interactions with others.

XREF: Relates to Arendt on the human condition of plurality and natality; also echoes existentialist accounts of authentic individuality.

XREF: Connectsto Arendt's distinction between equality and uniqueness, and to debates on egalitarianism versus individuality in political philosophy.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 187