Majority Minority Quotes

#1. Well, my personal mission statement is that we want marriage equality in all 50 states. We want it not to be a state-by-state issue. We don't want it to be something the majority is voting on. I don't think the civil rights of any minority should be in the hands of any majority.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson

#2. The sad fact is that the vast majority of drunks stay drunks. There's a small minority of us who reach that fork in the road where one side says 'live' and the other says 'drink'.

John Larroquette

#3. I believe that the family unit has fundamentally been the most positive thing for society, and I don't believe that any minority has the right to create changes that impact on the majority.

Stephen Baldwin

#4. As the House is designed to provide a reflection of the mood of the moment, the Senate is meant to reflect the continuity of the past
to preserve the delicate balance of justice between the majority's whims and the minority's rights.

Lyndon B. Johnson

#5. The active minority in the world is the fraction that makes the world a better place for the passive majority.

Israelmore Ayivor

#6. Applauds of the ignorant majority are worthless; applauds of the wise minority are priceless! Look carefully, who are applauding you? Look carefully, who are blessing you? Mud in the ground or stars in the sky?

Mehmet Murat Ildan

#7. The majority rejoice in the 'silo' mentality but the minority seek 'think tanks' whose advice brings significant reforms

Paul Gitwaza

#8. You know why I got involved in politics? The government is now a majority partner in my life. I am now a minority partner in my own life.

Anthony Scaramucci

#9. When you cannot achieve a majority, it's a good idea to get rid of minority stakes.

Mathias Dopfner

#10. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Thomas Jefferson

#11. Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. 'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#12. There has never been a successful social movement for any minority without the support of the majority.

Hudson Taylor

#13. If an action must be taken that will benefit the majority at the cost of the minority, is it morally indefensible?
If an action taken for the benefit of a majority occurs at the expense of a minority, is it moral action?

Garth Nix

#14. Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.

Edmund Burke

#15. Everybody feels safe belonging not to the excluded minority but to the excluding majority. You think, Oh, I'm glad that's not me. It's basically the same in all periods in all societies. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.

Haruki Murakami

#16. The truth does not need a number of supporters for authenticity. One person among the lot can be the only truthful out of the ten; 11 people out of 12 may be on the truthful side. However, the truth is the truth irrespective of how many people like to embrace it!

Israelmore Ayivor

#17. I've been a speaker. I've been a majority leader. I've been a minority leader. Those are the sort of things I don't need any more.

Dan Webster

#18. The oppression of a majority is detestable and odious; the oppression of a minority is only by one degree less detestable and odious.

William E. Gladstone

#19. If the proposed ordinance is adopted it will hurt small women- and minority-owned businesses the most, the majority of which are already struggling mightily to do business in this city of higher-than average costs of doing business.

Randy Hamilton

#20. Were anyone wondering how Sen. Harry Reid intended to manage life in the minority, it took one day of the 114th Congress to get the answer: Exactly as he did in the majority. Republicans would be wise to understand what he's up to ...

Kimberley Strassel

#21. A majority opinion does not represent the ultimate decision because such a view is not unanimous and lacks general will.

Duop Chak Wuol

#22. A democracy is a state which recognizes the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is, an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another.

Vladimir Lenin

#23. A nation riven by factions, in which the minority has no hope of ever becoming a majority, or in which some group knows it is perpetually outcast, will seem oppressive to its members, whatever the legal pretensions.

Henry A. Kissinger

#24. Minority of people are destined for success while majority succeed because they are determined for success. Where upon, work hard in silence and let success make the noise .

Osunsakin Adewale

#25. Do you see any majority, anywhere, in this imperfect and irreligious world, admitting that the minority is precious? That any minority is precious?

Katharine Fullerton Gerould

#26. In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

Edmund Burke

#27. When someone lives as a minority, they experience the world differently than those of us who live in the majority. We may occupy the same physical space, but we don't occupy the same psychic space.

Jennifer Granholm

#28. If the measures which have been pursued are approved by the majority, it is the duty of the minority to acquiesce and conform.

Thomas Jefferson

#29. Even before winning its majority, Harper's Republican-styl e Conservative party - well to the right Canada's traditional Progressive Conservative Party - managed to win minority governments with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote.

Linda McQuaig

#30. A fatal defect in majority rule is that by its very nature it abolishes itself. Majority rule must inevitably become minority rule: the majority is too big to handle itself; it organizes itself into committees ... which in their turn resolve themselves into a committee of one ...

Mary Parker Follett

#31. Progress begins with the minority. It is completed by persuading the majority, by showing the reason and the of the step forward, and that is accomplished by appealing to the intelligence of the majority.

George William Curtis

#32. Christianity always flourishes most as a life-giving minority, not as a powerful majority. It is through subversive, countercultural acts of love, justice, and service for the common good that Christianity has always gained the most ground.

Scott Sauls

#33. We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#34. Moral relativism denies the "immoral" minority the chance to argue logically against a "moral" majority, if there is no standard

J. Warner Wallace

#35. You think that the mental anguish you are experiencing is a permanent condition, but for the vast majority of people it is only a temporary state. (But what if I'm special? What if I'm in the minority?)

Jenny Offill

#36. In the lower classes the school master does not work for the parent, but against the parent. Modern education meanshanding down the customs of the minority, and rooting out the customs of the majority.

G.K. Chesterton

#37. Why, so soon as French Canadians, who are in a minority in this House and in the country, were to organise as a political party, they would compel the majority to organise as a political party, and the result must be disastrous to themselves.

Wilfrid Laurier

#38. In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#39. But if the laws are to be so trampled upon with impunity, and a minority is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put at one stroke to republican government, and nothing but anarchy and confusion is to be expected thereafter ...

George Washington

#40. The purpose of the minority is to become the majority.

Pete Sessions

#41. In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

James Madison

#42. The restriction of religion to private life therefore does not necessarily threaten the vital interests of the majority religion, if there is one, and it protects minority religions from tyranny of the majority.

Phillip E. Johnson

#43. Of course, the aim of a constitutional democracy is to safeguard the rights of the minority and avoid the tyranny of the majority. (p. 102)

Cornel West

#44. A majority, perhaps as many as 75 percent, of abortion clinics are in areas with high minority populations. Abortion apologists will say this is because they want to serve the poor. You don't serve the poor, however, by taking their money to terminate their children.

Alveda King

#45. The minority of a country is never known to agree, except in its efforts to reduce and oppress the majority.

James F. Cooper

#46. I think I have been perfectly clear in saying that I hope Canadians do elect a majority government. I think this cycle of election after election, minority after minority is beginning to put some of the country's interests in serious jeopardy.

Stephen Harper

#47. It is maintained that a society is free only when dissenting minorities have room to throw their weight around. As a matter of fact, a dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority. 41

Eric Hoffer

#48. At first view it might seem not to square with the republican theory, to suppose either that a majority have not the right, or that a minority will have the force to subvert a government ... But theoretic reasoning in this, as in most other cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice.

James Madison

#49. I'm used to being in the minority. I'm a left-handed gay Jew. I've never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.

Barney Frank

#50. when you are a small minority and you own the majority's wealth, security is naturally a primary consideration.

Kim Stanley Robinson

#51. The most sacred business of judges is not to ratify the will of the majority but to protect the minority from its tyranny.

Anna Quindlen

#52. The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.

Will Durant

#53. When you're in the minority, it doesn't matter what you're agenda is, you're not going to have the degree of freedom that you have as a member of the majority.

Tom Daschle

#54. I became aware of my destiny: to belong to the critical minority as opposed to the unquestioning majority.

Sigmund Freud

#55. Only a minority of biologists today hold that the variation of evolution cannot be random. In this point the minority are on more solid ground than the majority. If we want to gain a true insight into evolution, we must look to nonrandom variation.

Lee Spetner

#56. Democrats may be in the minority in Congress, but we speak for the majority of Americans.

Edward Kennedy

#57. I can think of few important movements for reform in which success was won by any method other than that of an energetic minority presenting the indifferent majority with a fait accompli, which was then accepted.

Vera Brittain

#58. Interestingly, Marxism, Communism and its derivative, Socialism, when seen years later in practice, are nothing but state-capitalism and rule by a privileged minority, exercising despotic and total control over a majority which is left with virtually no property or legal rights.

Andrew Carrington Hitchcock

#59. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case.

Abraham Lincoln

#60. Although we may face untold numbers that by their sheer mass appear to render us as little more than a speck in the face of them, a single person standing with God amidst any mass will always be an indomitable majority.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

#61. We're never all going to agree with each other. We have to learn to value the diversity. It's one of the presumable principles of our government that isn't followed nearly enough - one of the jobs of the majority is to try and make the minority feel comfortable.

Paul R. Ehrlich

#62. In 1967, only 4% of Americans approved of interracial marriage, yet the Supreme Court dismissed the desire of 96% of Americans who did not support it in order to preserve the rights of the minority.

Kathy Baldock

#63. When you're the only sane person, you look like the only insane person.

Criss Jami

#64. If there is a nuclear tactic being used here, I submit it is the use of that obstruction where a willful minority blocks a bipartisan majority from voting on the President's judicial nominees.

John Cornyn

#65. The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.

A.A. Milne

#66. In Congress the majority governs, but the minority rules.

Evan Esar

#67. We had a majority in 1990, 1994, 1996, we lost it every time. You know why? Because we compromised ... We don't need a majority. We need an irate, tireless minority. We need people who are just going to stand for the truth.

Matt Shea

#68. I hate that the actions of a minority can influence the opinions of a majority.

Sarah Ayoub

#69. The Muslim Brotherhood is a religiously conservative group. They are a minority in Egypt. They are not a majority of the Egyptian people, but they have a lot of credibility because all the other liberal parties have been smothered for 30 years.

Mohamed ElBaradei

#70. It has always been inevitable that, living as a small minority among a Christian majority, some Jews would convert to Christianity.

David Novak

#71. Both the historian and the novelist view history as the struggle of a tiny minority, able and determined to make judgments, which is up against a vast and densely packed majority of the blind, who are led by their instincts and unable to think for themselves.

Lion Feuchtwanger

#72. I do like Christmas. I do understand that there are people who hate it, and there are other religions that resent it. So, I speak to everybody - I try to speak to every kind of minority and majority that cannot escape the steamroller known as Christmas.

John Waters

#73. The opinion of the majority or the minority is of no importance! The important thing is the opinion of the Truth, of the Reason, of the Logic, of the High Intelligence!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

#74. There is a qualitative difference between being a minority and being a majority. Majorities are stronger under psychological pressure because numbers count. But only if they are aware of it.

Peter Abrahams

#75. Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority.

Albert Camus

#76. When you're the single French person in the middle of 10 Tunisians, the majority will impose their way of life on the minority.

Marion Marechal-Le Pen

#77. That the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of the history of the world.

John Adams

#78. The food of the minority is the hunger of the majority.

Eduardo Galeano

#79. To reduce this claim of slavery to an absurdity, it is only necessary to add that there are only two states in which slaves are a majority, and not one in which the slaveholders are not a very disproportionate minority.

William H. Seward

#80. I guess 35 years ago, I thought we had more of a democracy than we actually do. Majority support doesn't help unless the majority is active and votes - but the opposition minority votes a much greater proportion, so we often lose by a narrow margin.

Gloria Steinem

#81. The majority is not society, is not everyone. Majority coercion over the minority is still coercion.

Murray Rothbard

#82. The purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the majority's ability to harm a minority.

James Madison

#83. The human race is divided into two sharply differentiated and mutually antagonistic classes: a smal l minority that plays with ideas and is capable of taking them in, and a vast majority that finds them painful, and is thus arrayed against them, and against all who have traffic with them.

H.L. Mencken

#84. A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong.

Henrik Ibsen

#85. Demographically speaking, young white people are not in the majority in this country; they're in the minority. My question is, if they're not the majority anymore, then what happens? How do things change? Or do they change at all?

Jose Antonio Vargas

#86. The principles governing Western democracies, of which Israel rightly considers itself a part, are based on the assurance that everyone has a vote, but also that the minority needs to yield to the wishes of the majority.

Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

#87. The majority should not be punished and subjected to a licensing curfew because of the bad behavior of the minority.

Tessa Jowell

#88. People who are against hate are not a fringe minority, not even a silent majority, but are a silenced majority, silenced by the corporate media.

Amy Goodman

#89. Any minority's right to be different must be respected, but the right of the majority must not be questioned. Without the values at the core of Christianity and other world religions, without moral norms that have been shaped over millennia, people will inevitably lose their human dignity.

Vladimir Putin

#90. Historically, the minority party in Congress votes against raising the debt limit, forcing the majority party to whip its members into casting politically painful votes in favor.

Peter Welch

#91. The Constitution gives the president the power to appoint, upon the advice and consent of a majority of the Senate, and it plainly does not give a minority of senators any right to interfere with that process.

John Jay Hooker

#92. It is no less the duty of the minority than a majority to endeavour to defend the country.

John C. Calhoun

#93. It doesn't take a majority to change a society, or a faith. Only a small minority that yells, threatens, kills, that is willing to do anything to prove to themselves that they're right.

Roland Merullo

#94. No minority should climb all over the majority.

Lech Walesa

#95. She has told me that what she found most destructive about minority-group psychology "is that one comes to share the conviction of the majority: that one is less able, less intelligent, less educable, less worthy of responsibility." My sentiments, exactly.

Katharine Graham

#96. For decades, Saddam and his Sunni minority had imposed their will on Iraq, carrying on a 14-century tradition of Sunnis controlling Mesopotamia despite a Shiite majority.

Richard Engel

#97. In the past the great majority of minority voters, in Ohio and other places that means African American voters, cast a large percentage of their votes during the early voting process.

John Lewis

#98. An ethnic minority can live in peace with an ethnic majority as long as the majority does not use its preponderance to turn the institutions of the state into an instrument of ethnic favoritism or ethnic justice.

Michael Ignatieff

#99. Because the persecuting majority is vile, says the liberal, therefore the persecuted minority must be stainlessly pure. Can't you see what nonsense that is? What's to prevent the bad from being persecuted by the worse? Did all the Christian victims in the arena have to be saints?

Christopher Isherwood

#100. The majority does not rule in America, but the minority shouldn't hijack it. And it's because we're afraid. They have isolated us and made us feel as though we're alone. We're not.

Glenn Beck