“When, however, it is proposed to imbue the mind of a crowd with ideas and beliefs—with modern social theories, for instance—the leaders… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
“A person is not religious solely when he worships a divinity, but when he puts all the resources of his mind, the… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
A crowd thinks in images, and the image itself calls up a series of other images, having no logical connection with the… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
The conscious life of the mind is of small importance in comparison with its unconscious life. — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
“Logical minds, accustomed to be convinced by a chain of somewhat close reasoning, cannot avoid having recourse to this mode of persuasion… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
“To-day the majority of the great men who have swayed men's minds no longer have altars, but they have statues, or their… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
Crowds are somewhat like the sphinx of ancient fable: It is necessary to arrive at a solution of the problems offered by… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
“A civilization, when the moment has come for crowds to acquire a high hand over it, is at the mercy of too many chances… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
“The 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. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share
All the civilizations we know have been created and directed by small intellectual aristocracies, never by people in the mass. The power of crowds… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
“To the Jacobins of this epoch [the French Revolution], as well as to those of our times, this popular entity constitutes a superior personality possessing attributes peculiar to the gods of never having to answer for their actions and never making a mistake. Their wishes must be humbly acceded to. The people may kill, burn, ravage, commit the most frightening… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share
The images evoked by words being independent of their sense, they vary from age to age and from people to people, the formulas remaining… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
“To lose time in the manufacture of cut-and-dried constitutions is, in consequence, a puerile task, the useless labour of an ignorant rhetorician. Necessity and… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
Are the worst enemies of society those who attack it or those who do not even give themselves the trouble of defending it? — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
“If one destroyed in museums and libraries, if one hurled down on the flagstones before the churches all the works and all the monuments… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
“From the primary school till he leaves the university a young man does nothing but acquire books by heart without his judgment or personal… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
The precise moment at which a great belief is doomed is easily recognizable; it is the moment when its value begins to be called… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
“The work of a crowd is always inferior, whatever its nature, to that of an isolated individual.” — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
“Expressions such as infamous capital, vile exploiters, the admirable working man, the socialisation of wealth, &c., always produce the same effect, although already somewhat… — Gustave Le Bon Copy Share Image
