Masses Quotes

“A rumor is a social cancer: it is difficult to contain and it rots the brains of the masses. However, the real danger is that so many people find rumors enjoyable. That part causes the infection. And in such cases when a rumor is only partially made of truth, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the information may have gone wrong. It is passed on and on until some brave soul questions its validity; that brave soul refuses to bite the apple and let the apple eat him. Forced to start from scratch for the sake of purity and truth, that brave soul, figuratively speaking, fully amputates the information in order to protect his personal judgment. In other words, his ignorance is to be valued more than the lie believed to be true.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“When history is written as it ought to be written, it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity.”
― C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

“History would indicate that the majority of people have always been sheep.”
― Scott Westerfeld, Uglies

“You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Les dimanches d'un bourgeois de Paris, et autres aventures parisiennes

“If I were to vote, I would intentionally vote for the goofiest candidate. It is my theory that when the people can outwit the leader, the more respected their voices will be.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Since the earliest days of our youth, we have been conditioned to accept that the direction of the herd, and authority anywhere — is always right.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“A conscious human is driven by their conscience, not popular opinion.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“[T]here are in fact no masses, but only ways of seeing people as masses.”
― Raymond Williams, Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism

“Too much elite education renders a person unpractical. And tell you what? The highly educated people are further away from reality than the less educated ones. I would rather rely on the opinion of a less educated poor person who constantly deals with people, than an overly educated idiot who views this world only through an academic lens while sitting alone on his comfy couch.”
― Abhaidev, The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit

“But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice”
― Ayn Rand, Anthem

“It's not in the interests of the self-serving government to educate the masses to the point where they are smart enough to see through the bullshit - because then people will be too smart to vote for them again.”
― Christina Engela

“The great man of the masses. It is easy to give the recipe for what the masses call a great man. By all means, supply them with something that they find very pleasant, or, first, put the idea into their heads that this or that would be very pleasant, and then give it to them. But on no account immediately: let it rather be won with great exertion, or let it seem so. The masses must have the impression that a mighty, indeed invincible, strength of will is present; at least it must be seen to be there. Everyone admires a strong will, because no one has it, and everyone tells himself that, if he had it, there would be no more limits for him and his egoism. Now, if it appears that this strong will is producing something very unpleasant for the masses, instead of listening to its own covetous desires, then everyone admires it all the more, and congratulates himself. For the rest, let him have all the characteristics of the masses: the less they are ashamed before him, the more popular he is. So, let him be violent, envious, exploitative, scheming, fawning, grovelling, puffed up, or, according to the circumstances, all of the above.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

“If a country has a fascist leader, this is a great horror for that country; but there is much greater horror: The existence of ignorant and unethical masses who support that primitive leader!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Sexuality is the lyricism of the masses.”
― Charles Baudelaire, Intimate Journals

“Ce n'étaient là que des abstractions, des chiffres, des statistiques, des informations. On ne peut souffrir pour un million d'êtres.”
― Fred Uhlman, L'Ami retrouvé: Refonte

“Whatever one says on the air is bound to be misunderstood; for people take from the heard or printed discourse that which they are predisposed to hear or read, not what is there- all that TV can do is to increase the number of misunderstanders by many thousandfold – and at the same time to increase the range of misunderstanding by providing no objective text to which the voluntarily ignorant can be made to refer.”
― Aldous Huxley, Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience

“The really enlightened person has no desire to influence the masses. If they are influenced, that is another matter: 'The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflections; the water has no mind to receive their image.”
― Osho, Silent Period

“The COVID-19 lockdown and the Maui wildfire disaster both demonstrated that the USA government was using rental home owners as their new social security system for the masses!”
― Steven Magee

“You cannot think of relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues, acquaintances, as masses... Masses are other people.”
― Raymond Williams, Culture And Society 1780-1950

“Mulţimile, contrar indivizilor care le compun, nu au capacitatea unei judecăţi critice. Individul din cadrul unei mulţimi nu mai este el însuşi, ci un automat pe care propria sa voinţă nu-l mai poate dirija. În momentul în care face parte dintr-o mulţime, un individ, chiar dacă este o persoană foarte cultivată, îşi pierde capacitatea de a judeca critic şi se comportă în mod afectiv, având chiar manifestări primitive şi barbare. În consecinţă, judecăţile morale ale unei mase sunt independente de originea sau intelectul indivizilor care le compun.”
― Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Peoples (1898) [Leather Bound]

“Housing is out of reach to the masses!”
― Steven Magee

“The sharper the mind, the lonelier the road.”
― Samraat Singh, A Death Day

“The masses know that they know nothing and they have no desire
to know. The masses know they are powerless, and they don’t want
power. We reproach them vigorously for these signs of stupidity and
passivity. But they’re not that at all: the masses are very snobbish;
they act like Brummel and sovereignly delegate the faculty of choice
to someone else, in a sort of game of irresponsibility, ironic chal¬
lenge, sovereign lack of will, or secret ruse.”
― Jean Baudrillard, Fatal Strategies

“The crowds have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from any evidence that is not to their preference, preferring to worship falsehood, if falisty seduces them.
Whoever can supply them with delusions becomes their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions becomes their victim. An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand among other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.”
― Gustave Le Bon, PSYCHOLOGY OF CROWDS - Le Bon

“The crowds have never thirsted after truth. They ignore any evidence that is not to their preference, preferring to worship falsehood, if falsity seduces them.
Whoever can supply them with delusions becomes their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions becomes their victim.”
― Gustave Le Bon, CROWD PSYCHOLOGY: Understanding the Phenomenon and Its Causes (10 Books in One Volume): Exploring Crowd Behavior and Collective Psychology Dynamics

“While “Religion is Masses Opiate”, if it is consumed in excess or masses are produced in excess, it can have catastrophic impact on the Humanity itself.”
― Sandeep Sahajpal, The Twelfth Preamble: To all the authors to be!

“The fundamental issue that will resolve the fate of democracy is whether or not we really believe in democracy. Democracy as a way of life has been intellectually accepted but emotionally rejected. The democratic way of life is predicated upon faith in the masses of mankind, yet few of the leaders of democracy really possess faith in the people. If anything, our democratic way of life is permeated by man’s fear of man. The powerful few fear the many, and the many distrust one another. Personal opportunism and greedy exploitation link the precinct captain, the mayor, the governor, and the Congress into one cynical family. It is difficult to find the faintest flicker of faith in man, whether one scours the Democrats, from the Southern racist politicians to the Northern corrupt city machines, or scrutinizes the decayed reactionaries of the Republicans. On the contrary, it will be found that with few exceptions all of these leaders, regardless of their party labels or affiliations, share in common a deep fear and suspicion of the masses of people. Let the masses remain inert, unthinking; do not disturb them, do not arouse them; do not get them moving, for if you do you are an agitator, a trouble maker, a Red! You are un-American, you are a radical!

The past, the glorious past with all of its comfortable familiarity, was rooted in a general surrender of everyday democratic rights and responsibilities of the people. It was founded on masses of people who were and still are denied the opportunity to participate; who are frustrated at every turn and who have been mute for so long that they have lost their voices. Only at rare intervals did this quiet, peaceful, seemingly dead foundation stir and move. These upheavals were the revolutions of men fighting for the opportunity to play a part in their world, for a chance to belong, to live like men.

These masses of people were and are the substance of society. If they continue inarticulate, apathetic, disinterested, forlorn and alone in their abysmal anonymity, then democracy is ended. It has been stated and restated throughout these pages that substance determines structure and that the form of economy and politics will be and always has been a reflection of either the active desires of a democratically minded citizenry or the passive torpor of a people whose innate dignity and strength have atrophied from disuse, and who will follow slavelike after a dictator. It is irony worthy of the gods that here in the greatest democracy on earth is found the least concern over the prime element of democracy — citizens who shoulder obligations and stand up for their rights. A people’s democracy is a dynamic expression of a living, participating, informed, active, and free people. It is a way of life that belongs to the people, that draws its very life blood from popular participation. Democracy is alive, and like any other living thing it either flourishes and grows or withers and dies. There is no in-between. It is freedom and life or dictatorship and death.”
― Saul D. Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals

“Terror of extinction still haunts the major religions: an old habit, unlikely given their numbers.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“To a loner it hardly seems possible-not even plausible- that millions could agree on what God likes and dislikes and whether pork or beef is verboten. How, we muse, can millions nod in unison approving the validity of liturgy? How can the unseen move so many strangers in the exact same way? Those millions-nonloners, of course- would say it moves them alike because it is real. They would say the unanimity by which it moves them proves it is real. Loners cannot help but suspect something else afoot, something pedestrian. We know nonloners learn by imitation. We know they shore up their self-esteem through imitation, through securing a sense of belonging. Nonloners thrive on this, so why would it not tint their view of heaven? Among nonloners, religion fends off loneliness, one of their greatest fears, both within the soul and without.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“Mass is like a knife that can be used to peel an apple or to destroy human life. This depends entirely on whether the person controlling the mass is a balanced, normal person or a psychopathic, abnormal person, since the crowd has no mind of its own.”
― Mehmet Murat ildan