Reported in Sheryl Gay Stolberg, " Woman in the News: Sotomayor, a Trailblazer and a Dreamer http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/us/politics/27websotomayor.html?pagewanted=all", The New York Times (26 May 2009).
“Libertarians say: what about individual rights? The question boils down to this: how many robbers must there be before robbery is no longer a crime? How many rapists must there be before it is no longer rape? We all know logic. A crime is a crime, no matter how many people are involved. If the majority of a town goes out and lynches someone, it is still murder. Majority rule often leads to mob rule, which tramples on individual rights and self–ownership.”
Source: Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer, (1985), p. 196 (Chapter 23, “The Libertarian Philosophy and Taxation")
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L. K. Samuels 76
American writer 1951Related quotes
As quoted in "Justice under Reagan: Reagan seeks judges with 'traditional approach" (14 October 1985), U.S. News & World Report, p. 67
1980s
Friday Sermon in Qom, Iran: America Will Not be Able to Stay Here http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/233.htm August 2004.
Democracy in Iraq
Press conference in Saudi Arabia (21 April 1981), quoted in The Times (22 April 1981) p. 1, regarding the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
First term as Prime Minister
Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Blowin' in the Wind
“O Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!”
On being led to her execution, sometimes stated to have been directed at a specific statue of Liberty, in Memoirs, Appendix; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), and in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922); used by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on Mirabeau.
Variants:
O liberté, comme on t'a jouée!
O Liberty, how thou hast been played with!
As quoted in Letters Containing a Sketch of the Politics of France (1795) by Helen Maria Williams, Vol. 1, p. 201 http://books.google.de/books?id=FTkuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA201
Press conference in Los Angeles, California (17 December 1965), as seen and heard in No Direction Home.
Colin Brown, "Howard seeks to placate 'angry majority'", The Independent, October 7, 1993
Speech to the Conservative Party conference, October 6, 1993
As quoted in Defending controversial Jewish state bill, Netanyahu says ‘majority rules’ https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/pm-defends-controversial-jewish-state-bill-says-majority-have-rights-too/ (12 July 2018) by Tamar Pileggi, The Times of Israel.
2010s, 2018