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

July 6, 2025
If you are seeking the favor of men, be careful never to give a flat refusal to anyone who makes a request of you.
April 26, 2025
It’s better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.
May 5, 2025
The world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.
Page 21 of 124