Here's tae us; wha's like us? Gey few, and they're a'deid.

-Anonymous
c  Scottish toast of uncertain origin.'Damn'and other variations are sometimes substituted for 'gey'.

He rather hated the ruling few than loved the suffering many.

-Bentham,Jeremy
Of  James Mill. Quoted in Memories of Old Friends, being Extracts from the Journals and Letters of Caroline Fox (1882).

   And Jacobsaid unto Pharaoh,The days oftheyears of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: fewand evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Genesis 47:9.

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because theyare few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low: Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and mournersgo about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Ecclesiastes12:1^7.

Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many, to so few.

-Churchill, Lord Randolph Henry Spencer
  On theBattle of Britain pilots. Speech, House of Commons, 20  Aug.

'Tis grown almost a danger to speak true Of any good mind, now:There are so few.

-Jonson, Ben
  The Forest,'Epistle to Katherine, Lady Aubigny'.

The best that an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a chilly and inhospitable mountain top where few have been, where few can follow, and where few will consent to believe that he has been.

-Kennan, George Frost
On negotiating with the Soviets. Quoted in Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas The Wise Men (1986).

All governments use force and all assert that they are founded on reason. In fact, whether universal suffrage prevails or not, it is always an oligarchy that governs, finding ways to give to'the will of the people'the expression which the few desire.

-Pareto,Vilfredo
Quoted in Arthur Livingstone (ed) The Mind and Society (1935).

   Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

-Shaw, George Bernard
  Man and Superman,'Maxims for Revolutionists: Democracy'.