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THE CROWD, A Study of the Popular Mind
Paperback
Published January 1, 1973
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August 12, 2025
I didn’t like the translation of the book, I felt that it wasn’t done really well. Maybe the various references are not linked together. I don’t know, but I felt that the writing is haphazardly done.
So basically what the writer wants to say that once a crowd is formulated, there would be one opinion going around and soon everyone will take the same stand. Imagine a water current. Everything on that stream will go down to the same direction, no piece of wood will go against the current. This cable applied to any crowd phenomenon.
“We see, then, that the 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 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.”
So basically an individual may adhere to some acts whilst in the crowd,that he will never do in isolation, the crowd sort of hypnotized them. The power of the crowd is that strong.
This book can be applied to what happened on the Titanic and in every war. Also what happened during the legal proceedings of the perfume maker in the book called the perfume, as i suspect that the whole gathered crowd had smelled the perfume, but the hallucinations was contagious so the whole crowd thought that they smelled it.
Also you may recall a movie or a theatre were an actor had played a role of a traitor, we all hated him or her, imagine the crowd leaving the theatre and encountering this actor, they are going to cut him to shreds.
“The crowd demands a god before everything else.” It seems the writer is anti religion!
Also I guess the writer who thinks that the crowd are running the show must have not witnessed twitter ( now called X). That’s the dominating instrument of the crowd nowadays
Also, sorry about the number of excerpts, some of them are just examples of how badly the book is written.
I must admit that some pages I just skimmed through them
Excerpts:
“The crowd is always dominated by considerations of which it is unconscious—The disappearance of brain activity and the predominance of medullar activity—The lowering of the intelligence and the complete transformation of the sentiments—The transformed sentiments may be better or worse than those of the individuals of which the crowd is composed—A crowd is as easily heroic as criminal.”
“To know the art of impressing the imagination of crowds is to know at the same time the art of governing them.”
“Crowds are everywhere distinguished by feminine characteristics, but Latin crowds are the most feminine of all. Whoever trusts in them may rapidly attain a lofty destiny, but to do so is to be perpetually skirting the brink of a Tarpeian rock, with the certainty of one day being precipitated from it.”
“The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought.”
“The age we are about to enter will in truth be the ERA OF CROWDS.”
“Without a doubt criminal crowds exist, but virtuous and heroic crowds, and crowds of many other kinds, are also to be met with.”
“ In practice the most unjust may be the best for the masses.”
“The gathering has thus become what, in the absence of a better expression, I will call an organised crowd, or, if the term is considered preferable, a psychological crowd. It forms a single being, and is subjected to the law of the mental unity of crowds.”
“The first is that the individual forming part of a crowd acquires, solely from numerical considerations, a sentiment of invincible power which allows him to yield to instincts which, had he been alone, he would perforce have kept under restraint.”
“the sentiment of responsibility which always controls individuals disappears entirely.”
“In a crowd every sentiment and act is contagious, and contagious to such a degree that an individual readily sacrifices his personal interest to the collective interest.”
“A third cause, and by far the most important, determines in the individuals of a crowd special characteristics which are quite contrary at times to those presented by the isolated individual.”
“Crowds are everywhere distinguished by feminine characteristics, but Latin crowds are the most feminine of all. Whoever trusts in them may rapidly attain a lofty destiny, but to do so is to be perpetually skirting the brink of a Tarpeian rock, with the certainty of one day being precipitated from it.”
“Such is always the mechanism of the collective hallucinations so frequent in history—hallucinations which seem to have all the recognised characteristics of authenticity, since they are phenomena observed by thousands of persons.”
“What the observer then sees is no longer the object itself, but the image evoked in his mind.”
“What the observer then sees is no longer the object itself, but the image evoked in his mind.”
children invariably lie
“Are we in possession of a single word of truth concerning the lives of the great men who have played preponderating parts in the history of humanity—men such as Hercules, Buddha, or Mahomet?”
“crowds are too impulsive and too mobile to be moral.”
“the moral standard of crowds is very low.”
“The philosophical ideas which resulted in the French Revolution took nearly a century to implant themselves in the mind of the crowd.”
“To know the art of impressing the imagination of crowds is to know at the same time the art of governing them.”
“Among the remote factors there are some of a general nature, which are found to underlie all the beliefs and opinions of crowds. They are race, traditions, time, institutions, and education.”
“Education consists for him in reciting by heart and obeying.
“Learning lessons, knowing by heart a grammar or a compendium, repeating well and imitating well—that,” writes a former Minister of Public Instruction, M. Jules Simon, “is a ludicrous form of education whose every effort is an act of faith tacitly admitting the infallibility of the master, and whose only results are a belittling of ourselves and a rendering of us impotent.”
”
“The great leaders of crowds, such as Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, Joan of Arc, and Napoleon, have possessed this form of prestige in a high degree, and to this endowment is more particularly due the position they attained. Gods, heroes, and dogmas win their way in the world of their own inward strength. They are not to be discussed: they disappear, indeed, as soon as discussed.”
So basically what the writer wants to say that once a crowd is formulated, there would be one opinion going around and soon everyone will take the same stand. Imagine a water current. Everything on that stream will go down to the same direction, no piece of wood will go against the current. This cable applied to any crowd phenomenon.
“We see, then, that the 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 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.”
So basically an individual may adhere to some acts whilst in the crowd,that he will never do in isolation, the crowd sort of hypnotized them. The power of the crowd is that strong.
This book can be applied to what happened on the Titanic and in every war. Also what happened during the legal proceedings of the perfume maker in the book called the perfume, as i suspect that the whole gathered crowd had smelled the perfume, but the hallucinations was contagious so the whole crowd thought that they smelled it.
Also you may recall a movie or a theatre were an actor had played a role of a traitor, we all hated him or her, imagine the crowd leaving the theatre and encountering this actor, they are going to cut him to shreds.
“The crowd demands a god before everything else.” It seems the writer is anti religion!
Also I guess the writer who thinks that the crowd are running the show must have not witnessed twitter ( now called X). That’s the dominating instrument of the crowd nowadays
Also, sorry about the number of excerpts, some of them are just examples of how badly the book is written.
I must admit that some pages I just skimmed through them
Excerpts:
“The crowd is always dominated by considerations of which it is unconscious—The disappearance of brain activity and the predominance of medullar activity—The lowering of the intelligence and the complete transformation of the sentiments—The transformed sentiments may be better or worse than those of the individuals of which the crowd is composed—A crowd is as easily heroic as criminal.”
“To know the art of impressing the imagination of crowds is to know at the same time the art of governing them.”
“Crowds are everywhere distinguished by feminine characteristics, but Latin crowds are the most feminine of all. Whoever trusts in them may rapidly attain a lofty destiny, but to do so is to be perpetually skirting the brink of a Tarpeian rock, with the certainty of one day being precipitated from it.”
“The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought.”
“The age we are about to enter will in truth be the ERA OF CROWDS.”
“Without a doubt criminal crowds exist, but virtuous and heroic crowds, and crowds of many other kinds, are also to be met with.”
“ In practice the most unjust may be the best for the masses.”
“The gathering has thus become what, in the absence of a better expression, I will call an organised crowd, or, if the term is considered preferable, a psychological crowd. It forms a single being, and is subjected to the law of the mental unity of crowds.”
“The first is that the individual forming part of a crowd acquires, solely from numerical considerations, a sentiment of invincible power which allows him to yield to instincts which, had he been alone, he would perforce have kept under restraint.”
“the sentiment of responsibility which always controls individuals disappears entirely.”
“In a crowd every sentiment and act is contagious, and contagious to such a degree that an individual readily sacrifices his personal interest to the collective interest.”
“A third cause, and by far the most important, determines in the individuals of a crowd special characteristics which are quite contrary at times to those presented by the isolated individual.”
“Crowds are everywhere distinguished by feminine characteristics, but Latin crowds are the most feminine of all. Whoever trusts in them may rapidly attain a lofty destiny, but to do so is to be perpetually skirting the brink of a Tarpeian rock, with the certainty of one day being precipitated from it.”
“Such is always the mechanism of the collective hallucinations so frequent in history—hallucinations which seem to have all the recognised characteristics of authenticity, since they are phenomena observed by thousands of persons.”
“What the observer then sees is no longer the object itself, but the image evoked in his mind.”
“What the observer then sees is no longer the object itself, but the image evoked in his mind.”
children invariably lie
“Are we in possession of a single word of truth concerning the lives of the great men who have played preponderating parts in the history of humanity—men such as Hercules, Buddha, or Mahomet?”
“crowds are too impulsive and too mobile to be moral.”
“the moral standard of crowds is very low.”
“The philosophical ideas which resulted in the French Revolution took nearly a century to implant themselves in the mind of the crowd.”
“To know the art of impressing the imagination of crowds is to know at the same time the art of governing them.”
“Among the remote factors there are some of a general nature, which are found to underlie all the beliefs and opinions of crowds. They are race, traditions, time, institutions, and education.”
“Education consists for him in reciting by heart and obeying.
“Learning lessons, knowing by heart a grammar or a compendium, repeating well and imitating well—that,” writes a former Minister of Public Instruction, M. Jules Simon, “is a ludicrous form of education whose every effort is an act of faith tacitly admitting the infallibility of the master, and whose only results are a belittling of ourselves and a rendering of us impotent.”
”
“The great leaders of crowds, such as Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, Joan of Arc, and Napoleon, have possessed this form of prestige in a high degree, and to this endowment is more particularly due the position they attained. Gods, heroes, and dogmas win their way in the world of their own inward strength. They are not to be discussed: they disappear, indeed, as soon as discussed.”
Displaying 1 of 1 review