Majorities Quotes

Being `at the mercy of legislative majorities` is merely another way of describing the basic American plan: representative democracy.

Demand the ballot as the undeniable right of every man who is called to the poll, and take special care that the old constitutional rule and principle, by which majorities alone shall decide in Parliamentary elections, shall not be violated.

I wanted to do everything I could to see that we put a Republican president in the White House after the 2000 elections and give him a Republican Congress, and to add to our majorities in the state legislatures, ... And I am proud to say, sir, mission accomplished.

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).

When people say they do not care what others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselves. Generally they mean only that they will do as they choose, in the confidence that no one will know their vagaries; and at the utmost only that they are willing to act contrary to the opinion of the majorities because they are supported by the approval of their neighbors. It's not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.