Mahatma Gandhi - Ayn Rand - Harvey Milk - Henry David Thoreau - Ilkin Santak - Thomas Jefferson - Hillary Clinton - Alan Barth - Paul Foot - George Orwell - Ralph W Sockman - Robert Altman - Vladimir Lenin - G K Chesterton - Edward Bernays - Margaret Mead - Robert G Ingersoll - Eugene Victor Debs - Sydney Sith - Noam Chomsky - Henrik Ibsen - Soren Kierkegaard - Martin Luther King - Samuel Adams - Leo Tolstoy - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Norman Mailer - Eric Hoffer - Christopher Isherwood - John Stuart Mill - Robert Tressell - Jacob Zuma - Gunnar Myrdal - John Pilger -
Even if you are in a minority of one, the truth is still the truth. Mahatma Gandhi
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. Ayn Rand
It’s not my victory, it’s yours and yours and yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight. We’ve given them hope. Harvey Milk
Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
The negative side of democracy is that the position of ideological minorities is not in power. However, the ideological minorities are often smarter than the herd. Ilkin Santak
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
If a country doesn’t recognize minority rights and human rights, including women’s rights, you will not have the kind of stability and prosperity that is possible. Hillary Clinton
Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities of course are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions. Alan Barth
Great disparities of wealth in society, however, restrict freedoms every bit as much as restrictions on voting. Everyone is ‘free’ to send their children to private school, to have tea at The Ritz, to gamble on the stock exchange. These ‘freedoms’ are defended far more vigorously than the freedom to vote, yet they are in fact restrictions on freedom. For every one person who can have tea at The Ritz, there are a hundred who cannot do so because they have not got the money. If 10 per cent can send their children to private school and secure for them a straight route back into the privileged class from which they came, 90 per cent cannot do so – are banned from doing so – because they cannot afford it.
Thus the ‘freedom’ handed out by capitalist society is more often than not the opposite of freedom. Yet the idea of freedom still prevails, because the prevailing ideas of any society are the ideas of the class which runs it.
So the people who fight against these ideas – whether in strikes, demonstrations, popular protests or just in argument – are always, or almost always, swimming against the stream. They are the minority. But this minority, unlike the passive majority, can involve other people far outside their immediate orbit. And once involved in struggle against the old society, people’s ideas can change decisively. Paul Foot, The Case for Socialism chapter 6
It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. George Orwell, 1984
If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them. George Orwell, Tribune 7th December 1945
The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority. Ralph W Sockman
What’s a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority. Robert Altman, Guardian 11th April 1981
No, democracy is not identical with majority rule. Democracy is a State which recognises the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is an organization for the systematic use of force by one class against the other, by one port of the population against another. Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution pp95-96, 1919
Democracy is reproached with saying that the majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always right. G K Chesterton, What I Saw in America
But clearly it is the intelligent minorities which need to make use of propaganda continuously and systematically. Small groups of persons can and do make the rest of us think what they please about a given subject. Edward Bernays
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead, attributed, cited Donald Keys
Heresy is what the minority believe. It is the real name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak. Robert G Ingersoll
When great changes occur in history, then great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right. Eugene Victor Debs, 1855-1926, founder of American socialist party
Minorities ... are almost always in the right. Sydney Smith
For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us. Noam Chomsky
The perils of democracy: Madison asked them to consider what would happen in England if elections were open to all classes of people – the population would then use its voting rights to distribute land more equitably. To ward off such injustice, he recommended arrangements to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority … Aristotle and Madison posed essentially the same problem but drew opposite conclusions: Madison’s solution was to restrict democracy while Aristotle’s was to reduce inequality. Noam Chomsky, Failed States audio
A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong. Henrik Ibsen
Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion – and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion ... while truth again reverts to a new minority. Søren Kierkegaard
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better. Martin Luther King
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. Samuel Adams
The educated minority, although no longer believing in the existing religious teaching, still pretend to believe. Leo Tolstoy
I come more and more to the conclusion that one must take the side of the minority which is always the more intelligent one. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Conversation with Friedrich von Müller 6th March 1828