Gustave Le Bon

Not truth, but error has always been the chief factor in the evolution of nations, and the reason why socialism is so powerful to-day is that it constitutes the last illusion that is still vital

The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them.

The experiences undergone by one generation are useless, as a rule, for the generation that follows, which is the reason why historical facts, cited with a view to demonstration, serve no purpose.

The orators who know how to make an impression upon them always appeal in consequence to their sentiments and never to their reason.

These illusions, the offspring of those unconscious forces by which we are led, were doubtless necessary.

Let us leave reason, then, to philosophers, and not insist too strongly on its intervention in the governing of men.

civilisation-sentiments such as honour, self- sacrifice, religious faith, patriotism, and the love of glory.

The leader has most often started as one of the led. He has himself been hypnotised by the idea, whose apostle he has since become. It has taken possession of him to such a degree that everything outside it vanishes, and that every contrary opinion appears to him an error or a superstition

The leaders we speak of are more frequently men of action than thinkers.

The arousing of faith-whether religious, political, or social, whether faith in a work, in a person, or an idea-has always been the function of the great leaders of crowds, and it is on this account that their influence is always very great