Gustave Le Bon
French social psychologist (1841 to 1931); author of The Crowd.
Gustave Le Bon did not write this page.
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Their wordsNature has recourse at times to radical measures, but never after our fashion, which explains how it is that nothing is more fatal to a people than the mania for great reforms, however excellent these reforms may appear theoretically.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsWhile all our ancient beliefs are tottering and disappearing, while the old pillars of society are giving way one by one, the power of the crowd is the only force that nothing menaces, and of which the prestige is continually on the increase. The age we are about to enter will in truth be the ERA OF CROWDS.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsThe divine right of the masses is about to replace the divine right of kings.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsCivilisations as yet have only been created and directed by a small intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds. Crowds are only powerful for destruction.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsIt is for this reason that an indirect tax, however exorbitant it be, will always be accepted by the crowd, because, being paid daily in fractions of a farthing on objects of consumption, it will not interfere with the habits of the crowd, and will pass unperceived.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsMoreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organised crowd, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilisation. Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian—that is, a creature acting by instinct.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsIt will be remarked that among the special characteristics of crowds there are several—such as impulsiveness, irritability, incapacity to reason, the absence of judgment and of the critical spirit, the exaggeration of the sentiments, and others besides—which are almost always observed in beings belonging to inferior forms of evolution—in women, savages, and children, for instance.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsHad democracies possessed the power they wield to-day at the time of the invention of mechanical looms or of the introduction of steam-power and of railways, the realisation of these inventions would have been impossible, or would have been achieved at the cost of revolutions and repeated massacres.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Our reading
Ideas only influence crowds when they take a very absolute, uncompromising and simple form
Their wordsWhatever be the ideas suggested to crowds they can only exercise effective influence on condition that they assume a very absolute, uncompromising, and simple shape.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsWere it possible to induce the masses to adopt atheism, this belief would exhibit all the intolerant ardour of a religious sentiment, and in its exterior forms would soon become a cult.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Our reading
Peoples are governed by their character, and institutions not modelled on it are a borrowed disguise
Their wordsPeoples are governed by their character, and all institutions which are not intimately modelled on that character merely represent a borrowed garment, a transitory disguise.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsNot truth, but error has always been the chief factor in the evolution of nations, and the reason why socialism is so powerful to-day is that it constitutes the last illusion that is still vital.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Our reading
The masses have never thirsted after truth and prefer a seductive error to unwelcome evidence
Their wordsThe masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsA crowd is a servile flock that is incapable of ever doing without a master.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsAffirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the mind of crowds.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsPrestige in reality is a sort of domination exercised on our mind by an individual, a work, or an idea. This domination entirely paralyses our critical faculty, and fills our soul with astonishment and respect.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Their wordsWe have seen that when a deliberative assembly is called upon to give its opinion on a question of a character not entirely technical, intelligence stands for nothing.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Our reading
A candidate needs prestige or wealth, while talent and even genius matter little to success
Their wordsIt is of primary importance that the candidate should possess prestige. Personal prestige can only be replaced by that resulting from wealth. Talent and even genius are not elements of success of serious importance.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Our reading
On general questions a vote of forty academicians is no better than one of forty water-carriers
Their wordsIn a crowd men always tend to the same level, and, on general questions, a vote, recorded by forty academicians is no better than that of forty water-carriers.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
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Our reading
Despite their difficulties, parliamentary assemblies are the best form of government found so far
Their wordsIn spite of all the difficulties attending their working, parliamentary assemblies are the best form of government mankind has discovered as yet, and more especially the best means it has found to escape the yoke of personal tyrannies.
↗The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; English translation, 1896)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book