Majority Quotes - Page 28

• Majority decisions tend to be made without engaging the systematic thought and critical thinking skills of the individuals in the group. Given the force of the group's normative power to shape the opinions of the followers who conform without thinking things through, they are often taken at face value. The persistent minority forces the others to process the relevant information more mindfully. Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent.

  Philip Zimbardo

  Taken, Thoughtful, Thinking

  22 Copy quote

• When majority is insane, sane must go to asylum.

  Mark Twain

  Insane, Asylums, Sane

  4 Copy quote

• Reading is a majority skill but a minority art.

  Julian Barnes

  Art, Reading, Skills

  "Julian Barnes: my life as a bibliophile" by Julian Barnes, www.theguardian.com. June 29, 2012.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Evil…doesn’t mean doing things that have bad consequences for people. It means private thoughts and actions that are not to “the Christian majority’s” private liking.

  Richard Dawkins

  Christian, Atheist, Mean

  Richard Dawkins (2009). “The God Delusion”, p.328, Random House

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• History has never been dominated by majorities, but only by dedicated minorities who stand unconditionally on their faith.

  R.J. Rushdoony

  Minorities, Dedicated

  25 Copy quote

• Power. What do we mean? 'The ability to determine another man's luck.' ...how is it that some men attain mastery over others while the vast majority live and die as minions, as livestock? The answer is a holy trinity. First: God-given gifts of charisma. Second: the discipline to nurture these gifts to maturity, for though humanity's topsoil is fertile with talent, only one seed in ten thousand will ever flower -- for want of discipline. Third: the will to power.

  David Mitchell

  Flower, Mean, Maturity

  4 Copy quote

• I don't think people realize, when they're just getting started on an eating disorder or even when they're in the grip of one, that it is not something that you just "get over." For the vast majority of eating-disordered people, it is something that will haunt you for the rest of your life. You may change your behavior, change your beliefs about yourself and your body, give up that particular way of coping in the world. You may learn, as I have, that you would rather be a human than a human's thin shell. You may get well. But you never forget.

  Marya Hornbacher

  Giving Up, Get Well, Thinking

  Marya Hornbacher (2009). “Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia”, p.10, Harper Collins

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's basically the same in all periods of societies. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.' 'And those troubling things are all you /can/ think about when you're one of the few.' 'That's about the size of it,' she said mournfully. 'But maybe, if you're in a situation like that, you learn to think for yourself.' 'Yes, but maybe what you end up thinking for yourself /about/ is all those troubling things.

  Haruki Murakami

  Thinking, Size, Ends

  8 Copy quote

• It taught me, at an early age, that being wrong can be dangerous, but being right, when society regards the majority’s falsehood as truth, could be fatal.

  Thomas Szasz

  Age, Taught, Dangerous

  6 Copy quote

• We know from our recent history that English did not come to replace U.S. Indian languages merely because English sounded musical to Indians' ears. Instead, the replacement entailed English-speaking immigrants' killing most Indians by war, murder, and introduced diseases, and the surviving Indians' being pressured into adopting English, the new majority language.

  Jared Diamond

  War, Musical, Ears

  4 Copy quote

• You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

  Karl Marx

  Hands, Population, Done

  Karl Marx (1950). “Communist Manifesto: The revolutionary text that changed the course of history”, p.1839, Harriman House Limited

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• I may have no idea what I'm talking about," I said, a little ticked off now. "But we're all a part of a minority waiting for a majority to pull their heads out of their asses.

  Chris Colfer

  Talking, Ideas, Waiting

  5 Copy quote

• Of course you want someone special to love you. A majority of the people who write to me inquire about how they can get the same thing... Unique as every letter is, the point each writer reaches is the same: I want love and I'm afraid I'll never get it. It's hard to answer those letters because I'm an advice columnist, not a fortune-teller. I have words instead of a crystal ball. I can't say when you'll get love or how you'll find it or even promise that you will. I can only say you are worthy of it and that it's never too much to ask for it.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Love You, Writing, Unique

  4 Copy quote

• History would indicate that the majority of people have always been sheep.

  Scott Westerfeld

  Sheep, People

  Scott Westerfeld (2011). “Uglies”, p.258, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lesson one in time travel, Thursday. First of all, we are all time travellers. The vast majority of us manage only one day per day.

  Jasper Fforde

  One Day, Lessons, Thursday

  Jasper Fforde (2003). “Lost in a Good Book”, Viking Adult

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• People generally fall into one of three groups: the few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no notion of what happens. Every person is either a creator of fact or a creature of circumstance. He either puts color into his environment, or, like a chameleon, takes color from his environment.

  Myles Munroe

  Relationship, Fall, Color

  Myles Munroe (2011). “Understanding Your Potential: Discovering the Hidden You”, p.12, Destiny Image Publishers

  96 Copy quote

  Show source

• I shield my eyes from the sun to see her cold look—the expression I saw in my mind even before I looked at her. She looks older to me than she ever has, stern and tough and worn by time. I feel that way, too. “These people have no regard for human life,” she says. “They’re about to wipe the memories of all our friends and neighbors. They’re responsible for the deaths of a large majority of our old faction.” She sidesteps me and marches toward the door. “I think they’re lucky I’m not going to kill them.

  Veronica Roth

  Memories, Eye, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• Was there ever a time when the majority was right?

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Time, Right Time

  5 Copy quote

• When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Happiness, Happy, Men

  Niccolo Machiavelli (2015). “The Prince”, p.80, Xist Publishing

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• Promoting active liberty does not mean allowing the majority to run roughshod over minorities. It calls for taking special care that all groups have a chance to fully participate in society and the political process.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Running, Freedom, Mean

  25 Copy quote

• A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.

  Alexander Fraser Tytler

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  21 Copy quote

• A democrat need not believe that the majority will always reach a wise decision. He should however believe in the necessity of accepting the decision of the majority, be it wise or unwise, until such a time that the majority reaches another decision.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wise, Freedom, Believe

  4 Copy quote

• The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal.

  James F. Cooper

  Freedom, Democracy, Principles

  4 Copy quote

• In the long run the ideas of the majority, however detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind depends on the ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right direction.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Running, Freedom, Ideas

  Ludwig Von Mises (1962). “The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Despots and democratic majorities are drunk with power.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Freedom, Drunk, Democracy

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source