Crowd Psychology Quotes

Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Masses are always breeding grounds of psychic epidemics.

Only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd.

Mass democracy guarantees stupidity. Masses of people, even if they're individually intelligent, can only act stupidly.

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

If you wish the sympathy of broad masses then you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things.

The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is--a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any MAN at the head of it is BENEATH pitifulness.

You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.

In solitude the lonely man is eaten up by himself, among crowds by the many.

I enjoy playing the audience like a piano.

Whoever knows he is deep tries to be clear, but whoever wants to seem deep to the crowd tries to be obscure. For the crowd supposes that anything it cannot see to the bottom must be deep: it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water.

There is nothing more dangerous than debate in a crowd.

The problem with comedy audiences - it's like the Coliseum - when they see someone struggling, they don't feel altruistic towards them. They feel slightly repulsed by it.

The Humanity of men and women is inversely proportional to their Numbers. A Crowd is no more human than an Avalanche or a Whirlwind. A rabble of men and women stands lower in the scale of moral and intellectual being than a herd of Swine or of Jackals.

The 'wisdom of the crowds' is the most ridiculous statement I've heard in my life. Crowds are dumb.

It is a mistake to make propaganda many-sided, like scientific instruction, for instance... As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered.

I'm an anarchist. I'm implacably opposed to heirarchical systems of power and control. I also mistrust crowds, as they often operate according to their lowest common denominator. In terms of evolutionary psychology, the crowd is very close to a herd of stampeding wildebeest.

The mob does not deserve to be enlightened.

Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice.

You take a bunch of people who don't seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.

Your people, sir, is nothing but a great beast!

Every crowd has a silver lining.

Nothing is so uncertain or unpredictable as the feelings of a crowd.

The madness of mobs or the insolence of soldiers, or both, when too near to each other, occasion some mischief.