Minority Influence Quotes

The human race is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it.

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.

The judges must be many, for, if few, they will always follow the behests of the few.

Neither current events nor history shows that the majority rules, or ever did rule.

You don’t have a democracy. Most Americans want good relations with Cuba, but a few thousand Cuban-American right-wingers control U.S. policy and make everything between us bad.

The delegates from Virginia were the most violent of any—those of Maryland and some of the Carolinians a little less so. These Southern gentlemen exceeded the New England Delegates. They together made a Majority that the others could have very little effect upon.

There are in America from fifteen to twenty million religious fundamentalists who are dedicated to doctrines incompatible with democracy in that they insist on their prerogatives as first principles. An even larger group feebly follows the trail of fire breathed by those fundamentalists. They are the most dangerous minority we have because they categorically eschew the reasoned judgments of the majority. Democracy properly allows them the right to worship as they choose. It should never have conceded them the right to establish schools. Education is not a function of any church—-or even of a city—-or a state; it is a function of all mankind.

Majorities, of course, start with minorities.

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

Those who wish to cause religious conflict are small in number but often manage to dominate the headline.

Society never progresses because the majority one day wakes up and says, “Let’s do things differently.” The majority didn’t wake up and say, “Oh, let’s just free the slaves.” ... Society always progressed because a relatively small group of people — usually considered outrageous radicals by the status quo of their time — had a better idea and articulated another way. That’s simply how evolution works; it’s the mutation — the member of the species who does things differently - that points the way to the future because they’re better adapted for survival.

Democracy cannot survive without the guidance of a creative minority.

The people who have sufficient passion for the truth to give the truth a chance to prevail, if it runs counter to their bias, are in a minority. How important is this "minority?" It is difficult to say at this point, for, at the present time their influence on governmental decisions is not perceptible.

The power and influence of public opinion has increased, and the driving force of the nosiest elements of public opinion tends in excited times to consist, not of majorities, but of minorities.

The thing we have to fear in this country, to my way of thinking, is the influence of the organized minorities, because somehow or other the great majority does not seem to organize. They seem to feel that they are going to be effective because of their own strength, but they give no expression of it.

In small towns as well as large, good people outnumber bad people by 100 to 1. In big towns the 100 are nervous. But in small towns, it's the one.

Because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the other prevails they form the government. Hence arises the common opinion that there are two kinds of government - democracy and oligarchy.

The House of Representatives should not be locked down by the decided play of a few in leadership.

As long as men are free to speak, a small, rational minority will always prevail over an irrational majority.

Nothing appears more surprising ... than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

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

Without homosexuals there'd be no Hollywood.

There are many who say in effect that public opinion has little to do with war, that it is explained by the influence of the vested interests who profit by it — armament makers or groups of capitalists. But even when we have admitted that those interests do exert great influence, it only pushes the question further back. Why are the mass of men, millions, powerless in this matter as against a tiny minority … who profit by the general disaster? There are undoubtedly some who say to the millions in effect: "We should like you to go to war because it would expand our profits." But why do the millions obey?

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, to not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.

To avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, an alert citizenry today should take the trouble to learn how easy it can be for a powerful minority to manipulate information to win the support-or the indifference-of the majority towards an action.