Best mankind & majority Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“It may seem to your conceited to suppose that you can do anything important toward improving the lot of mankind. But this is a fallacy. You must believe that you can help bring about a better world. A good society is produced only by good individuals, just as truly as a majority in a presidential election is produced by the votes of single electors. Everybody can do something toward creating in his own environment kindly feelings rather than anger, reasonableness rather than hysteria, happiness rather than misery.”

Source: A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42

“The majority of mankind would seem to be beguiled into error by pleasure, which, not being really a good, yet seems to be so. So that they indiscriminately choose as good whatsoever gives them pleasure, while they avoid all pain alike as evil.”

Giving Seems Pain Evil Pleasure Mankind Majority Errors Being Real

Book:The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

“The difference between a pessimistic and an optimistic mind is of such controlling importance in regard to every intellectual function, and especially for the conduct of life, that it is out of the question to admit that both are normal, and the great majority of mankind are naturally optimistic.”

Mind Differences Mankind Normal Intellectual Function Importance Regard Majority Optimistic Pessimistic

Book:Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance)

Source: Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance)

“What generally passes for 'thought' among the majority of mankind is the time one takes out to rearrange one's prejudices.”

Thinking Mankind Prejudice Majority

Author:Clare Boothe Luce

“The majority, being satisfied with the ways of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make them what they are), cannot comprehend why those ways should not be good enough for everybody; and what is more, spontaneity forms no part of the ideal of the majority of moral and social reformers, but is rather looked on with jealousy, as a troublesome and perhaps rebellious obstruction to the general acceptance of what these reformers, in their own judgment, think would be best for mankind.”

Source: J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings

“To higher or lower ends, they [the majority of mankind] move too often with something of a sad countenance, with hurried and ignoble gait, becoming, unconsciously, something like thorns, in their anxiety to bear grapes; it being possible for people, in the pursuit of even great ends, to become themselves thin and impoverished in spirit and temper, thus diminishing the sum of perfection in the world, at its very sources.”

People World Ends Moving Spirit Mankind Source Bears Becoming Higher Anxiety Ambition Perfection Majority Pursuit Temper Grapes Thorns Countenance Ignoble Gait

Book:The Works of Walter Pater

Source: The Works of Walter Pater

“He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state and wishes to have it accepted, must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones. For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities.”

People May Has Beens Different States Facts Reality Seems Government Form Desire Wish Mankind Institutions Majority Appearance Accepted Satisfied Reform Semblance

Author:Niccolo Machiavelli

“In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.”

Mean Certain Numbers Mankind Fool Degrees Mass Respect Majority Respectable Respectability Knaves

Book:Lord Chesterfield's Letters

Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters

“Really, one of us ought to have the courage to call the experiment off and shoulder the responsibility for the decision, but the majority reckons that that kind of courage would be a sign of cowardice, and the first step in a retreat. They think it would mean an undignified surrender for mankind as if there was any dignity in floundering and drowning in what we don't understand and never will.”

Ifs Thinking Firsts Kind Mean Would Be Decision Responsibility Steps Mankind Ought Dignity Majority Surrender Experiments Shoulders Cowardice First Steps Retreat Drowning Floundering

Author:Stanislaw Lem

“God is certainly one. He has no second. He is unfathomable, unknowable and unknown to the vast majority of mankind.”

God Mankind Majority Unfathomable

Book:The Way to God: Selected Writings from Mahatma Gandhi

Source: The Way to God: Selected Writings from Mahatma Gandhi

“The majority of mankind think that they think; they acquiesce, and suppose that they argue; they flatter themselves that they are holding their own, when they have actually grown up to manhood, with scarcely a conviction that they can call their own. So it was, and so it ever shall be.”

Thinking Religion Mankind Majority Conviction Arguing Manhood

Book:How to Enjoy the Bible

Source: How to Enjoy the Bible

“Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.”

Liberty Mankind Majority Libertarian Libertarianism Unlimited Libertarian Party Despots

Author:John Adams

“The history of mankind is a history of the subjugation and exploitation of a great majority of people by an elite few by what has been appropriately termed the 'ruling class'. The ruling class has many manifestations. It can take the form of a religious orthodoxy, a monarchy, a dictatorship of the proletariat, outright fascism, or, in the case of the United States, corporate statism. In each instance the ruling class relies on academics, scholars and 'experts' to legitimize and provide moral authority for its hegemony over the masses.”

“Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors.”

Source: The Works of John Adams Vol. 6: Defence of the Constitution IV, Discourses on Davila

“Yet it would be unfair to the generality of our kind to ascribe to their intellectual and moral weakness the gradual divergence of Buddhism and Christianity from their primitive patterns. For it should not be forgotten that by their glorification of poverty and celibacy both these religions struck straight at the root not merely of civil society but of human existence. The blow was parried by the wisdom or the folly of the vast majority of mankind, who refused to purchase a chance of saving their souls with the certainty of extinguishing the species.”

“Many of us are experiencing a phase of change, shedding outdated patterns and liberating ourselves from the old by moving on to the new. The year 2012 is an important one for mankind, a pivotal year. The potential for this exists in the mere fact that the majority of us are yearning for change.”

Years Important Facts Moving Mankind Majority Mere Patterns Yearning Phases Liberating Outdated Pivotal

Author:Shari Arison

“Freedom is always in danger, and the majority of mankind will always acquiesce in its loss, unless a minority is willing to challenge the privileges of its few and the apathy of the masses.”

Challenges Loss Mankind Danger Willing Mass Majority Privilege Minorities Apathy

Author:Richard Crossman

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”

“The one distinct feature of our Association has been the right of the individual opinion for every member. We have been beset at every step with the cry that somebody was injuring the cause by the expression of some sentiments that differed with those held by the majority of mankind. The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires.”

“When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.”

People Law Justice Mankind Majority Refuse Command Appeals Unjust Contests Sovereignty Unjust Laws

Book:Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America

“War happens to people, one by one. That is really all I have to say and it seems to me I have been saying it forever. Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.”

People Ifs Has Beens War Seems Happens Would Be Imagination Forever Mankind Jokes Victim Majority Dues Bitter Behave Cosmic Elsewhere Atrophy

Author:Martha Gellhorn

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Mankind Quotes