Gustave Le Bon Quotes

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

  Gustave Le Bon

  Truth, Illusion, Victim

  Gustave Le Bon (2009). “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”, p.137, The Floating Press

  239 Copy quote

• All the civilizations we know have been created and directed by small intellectual aristocracies, never by people in the mass. The power of crowds is only to destroy.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Civilization, People, Intellectual

  86 Copy quote

• A crowd thinks in images, and the image itself calls up a series of other images, having no logical connection with the first...A crowd scarcely distinguishes between the subjective and the objective. It accepts as real the images invoked in its mind, though they most often have only a very distant relation with the observed facts....Crowds being only capable of thinking in images are only to be impressed by images.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Real, Thinking, Mind

  168 Copy quote

• We see, then, that the disappearance of the conscious personality, the predominance of the unconscious personality, the turning by means of suggestion and contagion of feelings and ideas in an identical direction, the tendency to immediately transform the suggested ideas into acts; these, we see, are the principal characteristics of the individual forming part of a crowd. He is no longer himself, but has become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Mean, Ideas, Personality

  Gustave Le Bon (1960). “Psychologie des foules”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  154 Copy quote

• One of the most constant characteristics of beliefs is their intolerance. The stronger the belief, the greater its intolerance. Men dominated by a certitude cannot tolerate those who do not accept it.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Men, Atheism, Stronger

  Gustave Le Bon, Alice Widener (1979). “Gustave Le Bon, the man and his works: a presentation with introduction, first translations into English, and edited extracts”, Liberty Fund

  104 Copy quote

• In crowds it is stupidity and not mother wit that is accumulated.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Mother, Stupidity, Crowds

  Gustave Le Bon (2009). “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”, p.33, The Floating Press

  88 Copy quote

• The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Reality, Revolution, Belief

  Gustave Le Bon (1947). “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”, p.83, Lulu.com

  87 Copy quote

• Crowds are influenced mainly by images produced by the judicious employment of words and formulas

  Gustave Le Bon

  Employment, Crowds, Formulas

  82 Copy quote

• The role of the scholar is to destroy chimeras, that of the statesman is to make use of them.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Political, Roles, Use

  111 Copy quote

• A crowd is not merely impulsive and mobile. Like a savage, it is not prepared to admit that anything can come between its desire and the realisation of its desire.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Atheism, Desire, Savages

  Gustave Le Bon (2012). “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”, p.27, Courier Corporation

  99 Copy quote

• 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

  Worst Enemy, Giving, Trouble

  Gustave Le Bon (1899). “The Psychology of Socialism”, p.52, Transaction Publishers

  81 Copy quote

• Science has promised us truth...It has never promised us either peace or happiness.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Inspirational, Happiness, Peace

  1895 Psychologie des foules, introduction.

  108 Copy quote

• The real cause of the great upheavals which precede changes of civilisations, such as the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Arabian Empire, is a profound modification in the ideas of the peoples .... The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought .... The present epoch is one of these critical moments in which the thought of mankind is undergoing a process of transformation.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Real, Fall, Memorable

  91 Copy quote

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

  Gustave Le Bon

  Motivation, Action, Results

  Gustave Le Bon (2013). “The Crowd”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

  61 Copy quote

• If atheism spread, it would become a religion as intolerable as the ancient ones.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Atheist, Atheism, Ancient

  80 Copy quote

• The influence of the leaders is due in very small measure to the arguments they employ, but in a large degree to their prestige. The best proof of this is that, should they by any circumstance lose their prestige, their influence disappears.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Leader, Atheism, Degrees

  Gustave Le Bon (2012). “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”, p.126, Courier Corporation

  68 Copy quote

• At the bidding of a Peter the Hermit millions of men hurled themselves against the East; the words of an hallucinated enthusiast such as Mahomet created a force capable of triumphing over the Graeco-Roman world; an obscure monk like Luther bathed Europe in blood. The voice of a Galileo or a Newton will never have the least echo among the masses. The inventors of genius hasten the march of civilization. The fanatics and the hallucinated create history.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Men, Civilization, Voice

  88 Copy quote

• The art of those who govern consists above all in the science of employing words.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Art, Employing

  Gustave Le Bon (1947). “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”, p.59, Lulu.com

  72 Copy quote

• Crowds are somewhat like the sphinx of ancient fable: It is necessary to arrive at a solution of the problems offered by their psychology or to resign ourselves to being devoured by them.

  Gustave Le Bon

  People, Psychology, Sphinx

  Gustave Le Bon (2012). “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”, p.70, Courier Corporation

  76 Copy quote

• The precise moment at which a great belief is doomed is easily recognisable; it is the moment when its value begins to be called in question.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Nihilism, Belief, Moments

  "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind".

  61 Copy quote

• The conscious life of the mind is of small importance in comparison with its unconscious life.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Mind, Conscious, Importance

  Gustave Le Bon (2013). “The Crowd”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

  49 Copy quote

• The images evoked by words being independent of their sense, they vary from age to age and from people to people, the formulas remaining identical. Certain transitory images are attached to certain words: the word is merely as it were the button of an electric bell that calls them up.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Independent, People, Atheism

  Gustave Le Bon (1947). “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”, p.57, Lulu.com

  42 Copy quote

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