Quotes from Gustave Le Bon

Science promised us truth, or at least a knowledge of such relations as our intelligence can seize: it never promised us peace or happiness. Sovereignly indifferent to our feelings, it is deaf to our lamentations. It is for us to endeavour to live with science, since nothing can bring back the illusions it has destroyed.

V?i m?t kho nh? nh?ng công th?c và nh?ng ?i?u sáo mòn h?c ???c khi còn tr?, chúng ta s? h?u ???c t?t c? ?i?u c?n có ?? ?i su?t cu?c ??i mà không c?n thi?t ph?i nh?c nh?n suy ngh? v? b?t c? chuy?n gì.

There can be no question to-day of a paper rich enough to allow its contributors to air their personal opinions, and such opinions would be of slight weight with readers who only ask to be kept informed or to be amused, and who suspect every affirmation of being prompted by motives of speculation.

Civilisations as yet have only been created and directed by a small intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds. Crowds are only powerful for destruction. Their rule is always tantamount to a barbarian phase. A civilisation involves fixed rules, discipline, a passing from the instinctive to the rational state, forethought for the future, an elevated degree of culture—all of them conditions that crowds, left to themselves, have invariably shown themselves incapable of realising.

In consequence of the purely destructive nature of their power crowds act like those microbes which hasten the dissolution of enfeebled or dead bodies. When the structure of a civilisation is rotten, it is always the masses that bring about its downfall.

Expressions such as infamous capital, vile exploiters, the admirable working man, the socialisation of wealth, &c., always produce the same effect, although already somewhat worn by use.

While 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.

Experience has not taught them as yet to a sufficient degree that men never shape their conduct upon the teaching of pure reason.

Các dân t?c ??u b? tính cách c?a chính h? th?ng tr?; và t?t c? nh?ng thi?t ch? nào không ???c ?úc khuôn v?a v?n v?i tính cách ?y s? ch? là th? qu?n áo vay m??n, m?t th? gi? trang t?m th?i.

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 modern age is the triumph of collective mediocrity.

The dogmas whose birth we are witnessing will soon have the force of the old dogmas; that is to say, the tyrannical and sovereign force of being above discussion. The divine right of the masses is about to replace the divine right of kings.

Were peoples only to be credited with the great actions performed in cold blood, the annals of the world would register but few of them.

Our interest is to know what our great men were as they are presented by popular legend. It is legendary heroes, and not for a moment real heroes, who have impressed the minds of crowds.

history is scarcely capable of preserving the memory of anything except myths.

The type of hero dear to crowds will always have the semblance of a Caesar. His insignia attracts them, his authority overawes them, and his sword instils them with fear.

Judgments accepted by crowds are merely judgments forced upon them and never judgments adopted after discussion.

The crowd demands a god before everything else.

The acquisition of knowledge for which no use can be found is a sure method of driving a man to revolt.

It is in the schoolroom that socialists and anarchists are found nowadays, and that the way is being paved for the approaching period of decadence for the Latin Peoples.

Ill-treat men as you will, massacre them by millions, be the cause of invasion upon invasion, all is permitted you if you possess prestige in a sufficient degree and the talent necessary to uphold it.

Believers always break the statues of their former gods with every symptom of fury.

Even revolutions can only avail when the belief has almost entirely lost its sway over men's minds. In that case revolutions serve to finally sweep away what had already been almost cast aside, though the force of habit prevented its complete abandonment. The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief.

At the present day, as the result of discussion and analysis, all opinions are losing their prestige; their distinctive features are rapidly worn away, and few survive capable of arousing our enthusiasm. The man of modern times is more and more a prey to indifference.