Quotes Library

October 22, 2025

Minorities…are almost always in the right.

Sydney Smith (1771–1845), English clergyman, essayist, H. Pearson, The Smith of Smiths (1934), Jay p.344

Was not the early Greek philosopher Heraclitus right, that all the world is in flux? And is it not true that most change is incremental, and that change-agents begin as a tiny group that grows? That this minority—who first broached the change that so many other have embraced over time—is then (almost) always right?

Right, as to substance, maybe. But right because they have the right to exist, absolutely.


More Quotes

March 20, 2025
No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.
January 23, 2025
In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.
September 8, 2025
Every profession has its secrets…if it hadn’t it wouldn’t be a profession.
Page 14 of 122