Quotes Library

January 30, 2025

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right.

Eugene Debs (1855-1926), founder of the Socialist Party of America, Speeches (1928), Jay p.111

Are you ever part of this minority? Or are you usually—with the majority—on the wrong side of historical change? Or great principles? Recall three times you missed a chance to be with a minority that was right in the end?

Of course, because only a minority can see and appreciate the future at any one time, and never with complete accuracy. For the majority to change course, even when great changes are afoot all around, is as difficult as turning an ocean liner in mid-channel.


More Quotes

November 11, 2025
Blessed is he who expects no gratitude, for he shall not be disappointed.
November 23, 2025
You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist he is preparing to do something that he is secretly ashamed of doing.
April 8, 2025
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.
Page 87 of 123