Gustave Le Bon

“A civilization, when the moment has come for crowds to acquire a high hand over it, is at the mercy of too…

— Gustave Le Bon

“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error,…

— Gustave Le Bon

All the civilizations we know have been created and directed by small intellectual aristocracies, never by people in the mass. The power…

— Gustave Le Bon

“To the Jacobins of this epoch [the French Revolution], as well as to those of our times, this popular entity constitutes a…

— Gustave Le Bon

The images evoked by words being independent of their sense, they vary from age to age and from people to people, the…

— Gustave Le Bon

“To lose time in the manufacture of cut-and-dried constitutions is, in consequence, a puerile task, the useless labour of an ignorant rhetorician.…

— Gustave Le Bon

Are the worst enemies of society those who attack it or those who do not even give themselves the trouble of defending…

— Gustave Le Bon

“If one destroyed in museums and libraries, if one hurled down on the flagstones before the churches all the works and all…

— Gustave Le Bon

“From the primary school till he leaves the university a young man does nothing but acquire books by heart without his judgment…

— Gustave Le Bon

The precise moment at which a great belief is doomed is easily recognizable; it is the moment when its value begins to…

— Gustave Le Bon

“The work of a crowd is always inferior, whatever its nature, to that of an isolated individual.”

— Gustave Le Bon

“Expressions such as infamous capital, vile exploiters, the admirable working man, the socialisation of wealth, &c., always produce the same effect, although…

— Gustave Le Bon

“Instead of preparing men for life French schools solely prepare them to occupy public functions, in which success can be attained without…

— Gustave Le Bon

“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

“Victims of the delusion that equality and liberty are the better assured by the multiplication of laws, nations daily consent to put…

— Gustave Le Bon

“Ideas being only accessible to crowds after having assumed a very simple shape must often undergo the most thoroughgoing transformations to become…

— Gustave Le Bon

“The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought. The reason these great events are…

— Gustave Le Bon

The influence of the leaders is due in very small measure to the arguments they employ, but in a large degree to…

— Gustave Le Bon

One of the most constant characteristics of beliefs is their intolerance. The stronger the belief, the greater its intolerance. Men dominated by…

— Gustave Le Bon

The greater part of our daily actions are the result of hidden motives which escape our observation.

— Gustave Le Bon

The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their…

— Gustave Le Bon

“Experience alone, that supreme educator of peoples, will be at pains to show us our mistake. It alone will be powerful enough…

— Gustave Le Bon

“Words whose sense is the most ill-defined are sometimes those that possess the most influence. Such, for example, are the terms democracy,…

— Gustave Le Bon

A crowd is not merely impulsive and mobile. Like a savage, it is not prepared to admit that anything can come between…

— Gustave Le Bon

“should a legislator, wishing to impose a new tax, choose that which would be theoretically the most just? By no means. In…

— Gustave Le Bon