Sam Rayburn Quotes

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.

51 percent of the people should not always get 100% of the power; 51 percent of the people should certainly not get all the power if they use that power to exclude the 49%. In that case, we do not have majority rule. We have majority tyranny.

The dictatorship of the majority is a bugaboo which haunts the books of political theorists but has never been found in the flesh in modern history

The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong . The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.... If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority.

The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority.

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.

A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party

At times those who won, 51 percent of the population claim the right to ride roughshod over the other 49 percent.

We should not allow the minority to control the majority by requiring super majorities on budget related votes.

The tyranny of a multitude [mob] is a multiplied tranny.

The majority are not morally free to become a tyranny and destroy the rights of minorities.

The people never have and never will be able to understand how the will of a majority of the House of Representatives can be set aside by the judgment of a few men on a powerful committee.

There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.

It is quite plain that your government will never be able to restrain a distressed and discontented majority. For with you the majority is the government, and has the rich, who are always a minority, absolutely at its mercy.

Wherever the real power in a government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Government the real power lies in the majority of the community.

Could any thing in theory be more pernicious improvident and injudicious than this submission of the will of the majority to the most trifling minority?

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.

Mass opinion has acquired mounting power in this century. It has shown itself to be a dangerous master of decisions when the stakes are life and death.

Filibuster is nothing less than a formula for tyranny by the minority

The opinion of the majority is not lightly to be rejected; but neither is it to be carelessly echoed.

Control by the majority. Everything else about our government is appendage, it is ornamentation.

I'm all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius

There would be but one article in the constitution of a State Socialistic country: “The right of the majority is absolute.”

The majority prevails in a democracy, eventually.

We'll vote when we have the votes.