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

February 14, 2025
Whatever else may be shaken, there are some facts established beyond warring; for virtue is better than vice
February 25, 2025
I am a revolutionist by birth, reading and principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists because there
June 12, 2025
The people as a body cannot deliberate. Nevertheless, they will feel an irresistible impulse to act
Page 73 of 122