What characterizes a member of a minority group is that he is forced to see himself as both exceptional and insignificant, marvelous and awful, good and evil. Norman Mailer, A Speech at Berkeley on Vietnam Day, Cannibals and Christians, 1966
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. Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition, 1973
So, let’s face it, minorities are people who probably look and act and think differently from us, and have faults we don’t have. We may dislike the way they look and act, and we may hate their faults. And it’s better if we admit to disliking and hating them, than if we try to smear out feelings over with pseudo-liberal sentimentality. If we’re frank about our feelings, we have a safety-valve; and if we have a safety-valve, we’re actually less likely to start persecuting. Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. John Stuart Mill
The majority work hard and live in poverty in order that the minority may live in luxury without working at all, and as the majority are mostly fools, they not only agree to pass their lives in incessant slavery and want, in order to pay this rent to those who own the country, but they say it is quite right that they should have to do so, and are very grateful to the little minority for allowing them to remain in the country at all. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
Sorry, we have more rights here because we are a majority. You have fewer rights because you are a minority. Absolutely, that’s how democracy works. So, it is a question of accepting the rules within democracy and you must operate in them. Jacob Zuma, President’s Question Time 13th September 2012
The big majority of Americans, who are comparatively well off, have developed an ability to have enclaves of people living in the greatest misery without almost noticing them. Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist & sociologist
Here in fortified splendour live some of the richest people of the world. Representing 5% of the population, they and the rest of white South Africa control 88% of the national wealth. And yet they, not the majority, are the material beneficiaries of democracy. No longer international pariahs, they can now travel and play sport and do business wherever in the world they like secure in the delusion that they gave freedom to the majority. They’ve been asked to give up nothing. Not even a modest wealth tax ... What is remarkable is the degree of restraint exercised by the impoverished majority, given the continuing display of wealth by a minority and the adaptation of many of the injustices of the past. John Pilger, Apartheid Did Not Die, ITV 1998