You can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
...but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself.
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable.
the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.
It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.
The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority.
The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.
The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.
The Greeks... labored under the delusion that their democracy was a guarantee of peace and plenty, not realizing that unrestrained majority rule always destroys freedom, puts the minority at the mercy of the mob, and works at cross-purposes to the effective use of human energy and individual initiative.
Now majority rule is a precious, sacred thing worth dying for. But like other precious, sacred things .... it's not only worth dying for; it can make you wish you were dead. Imagine if all life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would be a pizza.
The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.
"All government in essence," says Emerson, "is tyranny." It matters not whether it is government by divine right or majority rule. In every instance its aim is the absolute subordination of the individual.
or simply:
