Majority Quotes - Page 27

• Cosmetic surgery processes the bodies of woman-made women, who make up the vast majority of its patient pool, into man-made women.

  Naomi Wolf

  Self Esteem, Men, Body

  Naomi Wolf (1990). “The Beauty Myth”, Vintage

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• We forget that there is much more patriotism in having the audacity to differ from the majority than in running before the crowd; we forget that in the resistance of the minority some of the biggest things in our own history have been accomplished, and the man who looks on the Stars and Stripes and doesn't hold a right to say nay to his neighbor, even if the neighbor is of the larger party, has forgotten the history of his country.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Running, Country, Stars

  24 Copy quote

• In a few more days I'd anticipated telling Veronika that our injections had cured her heart condition. But in light of her unscheduled departure form Villette my telling that particular lie will not be required. The majority of people who attempt suicide repeat that attempt until they succeed. I took a risk in lying to her about her condition, i decided to test the only remedy i have come to have any faith in: awareness of life. Until she finds out from some other doctor that she is perfectly healthy. She'll consider each day a miracle. Which in my view it is.

  Paulo Coelho

  Suicide, Lying, Heart

  10 Copy quote

• The vast majority of us imagine ourselves as like literature people or math people. But the truth is that the massive processor known as the human brain is neither a literature organ or a math organ. It is both and more.

  John Green

  Math, People, Brain

  7 Copy quote

• The most dangerous enemy of the truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority

  Henrik Ibsen

  Truth, Freedom, Enemy

  55 Copy quote

• 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

  Rights, Democracy, Minorities

  14 Copy quote

• It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for silence is a fragile thing, one loud noise, and its gone. But the people are so cowed and disorganised. A few might take the opportunity to protest, but it'll just be a voice crying in the wilderness. Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations, Evey and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.

  Alan Moore

  Opportunity, Voice, People

  13 Copy quote

• Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man.

  Richard Matheson

  Men, Normalcy, Standards

  Richard Matheson (1954). “I Am Legend”, Greenwich, Connecticut : Fawcett

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Thinking, Minorities, Safe

  4 Copy quote

• No settlement with the majority community is possible, as no Hindu leader speaking with any authority shows any concern or genuine desire for it.

  Muhammad Ali Jinnah

  Leader, Desire, Authority

  Muhammad Ali Jinnah's Address to the Muslim League Lucknow, www.columbia.edu. October 1937.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great majority of us are Muslims. We follow the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed (may peace be upon him). We are members of the brotherhood of Islam in which all are equal in rights, dignity and self-respect. Consequently, we have a special and a very deep sense of unity. But make no mistake: Pakistan is not a theocracy or anything like it.

  Muhammad Ali Jinnah

  Mistake, Teaching, Rights

  Broadcast to the people of Australia, February 19, 1948.

  161 Copy quote

  Show source

• I would rather be in minority and be right, than in the majority and wrong.

  Jodi Picoult

  Minorities

  Jodi Picoult (2011). “Sing You Home: A Novel”, p.343, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• .. if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they’d probably say they didn’t. Yet that’s not necessarily what they truly think. It’s just the way they defend themselves against what they want. They believe in it, but pretend they don’t until they’re allowed to. Most people would throw away all their cynicism if they could. The majority just never gets the chance.

  Alain de Botton

  Believe, Thinking, People

  6 Copy quote

• Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Country, Deep Love, Order

  20 Copy quote

• The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial. ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.

  Edward Abbey

  Hate, Thinking, Air

  93 Copy quote

• It was a time of great loneliness. He had a group of friends, and suddenly I had no one and did not understand why. I felt excluded. Some days, the majority was in high school and did not know who to talk to. And that is something really terrible when you're twelve years old.

  Taylor Swift

  Loneliness, School, Years

  4 Copy quote

• He spends the majority of the evening in the company of Celia Bowen, whose elaborate gown changes color, shifting through a rainbow of hues to compliment whoever she is closest to.

  Erin Morgenstern

  Color, Rainbow, Gowns

  4 Copy quote

• Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Powerful, Knowing, Want

  212 Copy quote

• The creative process requires more than reason. Most original thinking isn't even verbal. It requires 'a groping experimentation with ideas, governed by intuitive hunches and inspired by the unconscious.' The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked.

  David Ogilvy

  Men, Thinking, Ideas

  David Ogilvy (1963). “Confessions of an advertising man”, Holiday House

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.

  Milton Friedman

  Freedom, Mean, Men

  Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.15, University of Chicago Press

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right.

  Henrik Ibsen

  Lying, Age, Revolt

  HENRIK IBSEN; SIDNEY KINGSLEY; SIDNEY HOWARD (1961). “AND ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE; MEN IN WHITE; YELLOW JACK”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Comrades," he said, "here is a point that must be settled. The wild creatures, such as rats and rabbits–are they our friends or our enemies? Let us put it to the vote. I propose this question to the meeting: Are rats comrades?" The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by an overwhelming majority that rats were comrades. There were only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted on both sides.

  George Orwell

  Dog, Taken, Cat

  George Orwell (2016). “Animal Farm”, p.3, Hamilton Books

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe.

  Frederick Douglass

  Men, Sides, Conscience

  Speech to National Free Soil Convention, Pittsburgh, Pa., 11 Aug. 1852 See Coolidge 2; Andrew Jackson 7; John Knox 1; Wendell Phillips 3; Thoreau 9

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Economists often talk about the 80/20 Principle, which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the “work” will be done by 20 percent of the participants. In most societies, 20 percent of criminals commit 80 percent of crimes. Twenty percent of motorists cause 80 percent of all accidents. Twenty percent of beer drinkers drink 80 percent of all beer. When it comes to epidemics, though, this disproportionality becomes even more extreme: a tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Beer, Epidemics, Ideas

  "How to start an epidemic" by Malcolm Gladwell, www.theguardian.com. April 22, 2000.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Revealingly, the central function of the Constitution as law--the supreme law--was to impose limitations not on the behavior of ordinary citizens but on the federal government. The government, and those who ran it, were not placed outside the law, but expressly targeted by it. Indeed, the Bill of Rights is little more than a description of the lines that the most powerful political officials are barred from crossing, even if they have the power to do so and even when the majority of citizens might wish them to do so.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Powerful, Law, Rights

  9 Copy quote