Multitude Quotes

The knowledge of the few cannot counteract the ignorance of the many.... The light of philosophy, when it is confined to a small minority, points out the possessors as the victims rather than the illuminators of the multitude.

Power always follows Property. This I believe to be as infallible a Maxim, in Politicks, as, that Action and Re-action are equal, is in Mechanicks. Nay I believe We may advance one Step farther and affirm that the Ballance of Power in a Society, accompanies the Ballance of Property in Land. The only possible Way then of preserving the Ballance of Power on the side of equal Liberty and public Virtue, is to make the Acquisition of Land easy to every Member of Society: to make a Division of the Land into Small Quantities, So that the Multitude may be possessed of landed Estates. If the Multitude is possessed of the Ballance of real Estate, the Multitude will have the Ballance of Power, and in that Case the Multitude will take Care of the Liberty, Virtue, and Interest of the Multitude in all Acts of Government.

Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.

A pure democracy is generally a very bad government, It is often the most tyrannical government on earth; for a multitude is often rash, and will not hear reason.

Under a democratical government the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude.

Passionate dissent from the will of the multitude should be respected, not derided.

A portion of the multitude must ever be coerced.

The expansion of choice has become an explosion of choice.

It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. It is better to speak the truth that hurts and then heals, than falsehood that comforts and then kills. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It is better to stand alone with the truth, than to be wrong with a multitude. It is better to ultimately succeed with the truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie. There is only one Gospel.

It is the multitude which possess force, and wisdom must yield to that.

Ingratitude is monstrous; and for the multitude to be ingrateful were to make a monster of the multitude; of which we being members, should bring ourselves to be monstrous members.

And you are made of a hundred trillion cells. We are, each of us, a multitude.

There is no process of amalgamation by which opinions, wrong individually, can become right merely by their multitude.

Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety

Multitude, solitude: equal and interchangeable terms for the active and prolific poet.

To be old is to be part of a huge and ordinary multitude... the reason why old age was venerated in the past was because it was extraordinary.

Whoso taketh in hand to govern a multitude, either by way of liberty or principality, and cannot assure himself of those persons that are enemies to that enterprise, doth frame a state of short perseverance.

We are, each of us, a multitude. Within us is a little universe.

If there be any among those common objects of hatred I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason, virtue, and religion, the multitude; that numerous piece of monstrosity, which, taken asunder, seem men, and the reasonable creatures of God, but, confused together, make but one great beast, and a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra.

Our system of government is protected from the cabal of the few and the confusion of the multitude.

Reason will conclude that where multitude is, there is the truth.

Religion is the only metaphysic that the multitude can understand and adopt.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude, Can play upon it.

Plato says a multitude can never philosophize and hence can never recognize the seriousness of philosophy or who really philosophizes. Attempting to influence the multitude results in forced prostitution.