Bertrand Russell Quotes

Everything, everywhere, shall be decided by majority vote.

'Democratic' in its original meaning refers to unlimited majority rule....a social system in which one's work, one's property, one's mind, and one's life are at the mercy of any gang that may muster the vote of a majority at any moment for any purpose

The majority of people wherever found ought in all questions to govern the minority.

The majority prevails in a democracy, eventually.

Supreme power rests in the will of all or of the majority.

It's a democracy and if I am outvoted, I have to accept the majority decisions.

We must reflect more on what democracy in the exercise of authority would mean. Is truth determined by a majority vote, only for a new 'truth' to be 'discovered' by a new majority tomorrow?

A democratic government must always be left free to be operated upon by the will of the majority of the time being. All that the government of the day can do is to ascertain what now appears to be the best principle.

In the United States, where the numerical majority have long been in full possession of collective despotism, they would probably be as unwilling to part with it as a single despot or an aristocracy.

In a democracy, you must follow the will of the majority, which may be right or wrong, moral or immoral, just or unjust. If that's the ruling of the majority that is what you should follow, respect, and obey — although you may continue to disagree with it.

… though the majority might be temporarily wrong, in the end, a majority that remained a majority over a period of years was usually right, and in our country, at least, we have been governed by the will of the majority. It has not meant, nor I surmise, does it mean in the present, the destruction of minorities …

Wherever the sentiment of the majority is still genuine and intense, it is found to have abated little of its claim to be obeyed.

The will of the majority will be respected.

Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it has the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them.

The minority yields to the majority!

Democracy is the art of thinking independently together.

Democracy is nothing but the Tyranny of Majorities, the most abominable tyranny of all, for it is not based on the authority of a religion, not upon the nobility of a race, not on the merits of talents and of riches. It merely rests upon numbers and hides behind the name of the people.

Logically, in a society ostensibly grounded on representative government, it would seem reasonable that a majority of the people in a State would elect a majority of that State’s legislators.

Democracy means decision by those concerned.

Majority rule is not the norm for solving issues or problems.

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

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

Decision by majorities is as much an expedient as lighting by gas.

The Government among them consists of the oldest, the most sensible, the best-speaking and most warlike Men; these commonly resolve, and the young and war-like Men carry into Execution; but if the common People do not approve of the Resolution, it is left entirely to the judgment of the Mob.

The people of [a] country [who have] never been in the habit of self-government [will] not [be] in the habit of acknowledging that fundamental law of nature by which alone self-government can be exercised by a society, I mean the lex majoris partis. Of the sacredness of this law, our countrymen are impressed from their cradle so that with them it is almost innate. This single circumstance may possibly decide the fate of [a country.]