Gustave Le Bon
GUSTAVE LE BON  Macroknow Library
     

   
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
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" . . . [T]he teachings of pure reason are very often contrary to those of practical reason. . . In certain cases there is more truth in the unreal than in the real."1a

" . . . [T]he 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."1b

" . . . [T]he disappearance of the conscious personality, the predominance of the unconscious personality, the turning of feelings and ideas in an identical direction by means of suggestion and contagion, the tendency to immediately transfer the suggested ideas into acts; these, we see, are the principle characteristics of the individual forming part of the crowd. He is no longer himself, but has become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will."1c

" . . . [T]he mere fact that an individual forms part of a crowd, his intellectual standard is immediately and considerably lowered."1d

"Many eminent philosophers . . . have had no difficulty in showing that instruction neither renders a man more moral nor happier, that it changes neither his instincts nor his hereditary passions . . ."1e

"The conditions of success in life are the possession of judgment, experience, initiative, and character -- qualities which are not bestowed by books."1f

"Armed with a small stock of formulas and commonplaces learnt while we are young, we possess all that is needed to traverse life without the tiring necessity of having to reflect on anything whatever."1g

"Great power is given to ideas propagated by affirmation, repetition, and contagion by the circumstance that they acquire in time that mysterious force known as prestige."1h HITLER CHOMSKY

"The man of modern times is more and more a prey to indifference."1i

"To pass in pursuit of an ideal from the barbarous to the civilized state, and then, when this ideal has lost its virtue, to decline and die, such is the cycle of the life of a people."1j


     
   

* Italics in the original.

1 Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931). The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 2002. (An unabridged republication of a standard English translation of the work originally published in 1895 in France as La psychologie des foules.)
a Preface, at iv-v.
INTRODUCTION
b The Era of Crowds, at x.
BOOK I: THE MIND OF CROWDS
c Chapter I. General Characteristics of Crowds,-- Psychological Law of Their Mental Unity, at 8.
d Chapter II. The Sentiments and Morality of Crowds, at 24.
BOOK II: THE OPINIONS AND BELIEFS OF CROWDS
e Chapter I. Remote Factors of the Opinions and Beliefs of Crowds, at 52.
f Ibid., at 55.
g Chapter II. The Immediate Factors of the Opinions of Crowds, at 62.
h Chapter III. The Leaders of Crowds and Their Means of Persuasion, at 81.
i Chapter IV. Limitations of the Variability of the Beliefs and Operations of Crowds, at 99.
BOOK III: THE CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF CROWDS
j Chapter V. Parliamentary Assemblies, at 139.

MK-BOOKS-LE-BON-20061113.