Quote of Gustave Le Bon - The masses have never thirsted after...

Biography - Gustave Le Bon:

French polymath.
Born: 1841 - Died: 1931
Period:
20th century
19th century
Place of birth: France
France

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. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.

Gustave Le Bon - The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind

Note

Quote source: The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind

Wikisource - Le Bon - Psychologie des foules (fr)

Translation

(French, German)

Les foules n’ont jamais eu soif de vérité. Devant les évidences qui leur déplaisent, elles se détournent, préférant déifier l’erreur, si l’erreur les séduit. Qui sait les illusionner est aisément leur maître ; qui tente de les désillusionner est toujours leur victime.

Gustave Le Bon - Psychologie des foules

Nie haben die Massen nach Wahrheit gedürstet. Von den Tatsachen, die ihnen missfallen, wenden sie sich ab und ziehen es vor, den Irrtum zu vergöttern, wenn er sie zu verführen vermag. Wer sie zu täuschen versteht, wird leicht ihr Herr, wer sie aufzuklären sucht, stets ihr Opfer.

Gustave Le Bon - Psychologie der Massen

Quotes about mistake:

Love truth, but pardon error.

Voltaire - Discourse in Verse on Man - on Freedom /

What is tolerance? It is the endowment of humanity. We are all steeped in weakness and error; let us forgive each other our stupidities, that is the first law of nature.

Voltaire - Philosophical Dictionary /

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.

Carl Gustav Jung /

Any man can make mistakes.

Marcus Tullius Cicero - Philippicae /

I would never die for my beliefs, because I might be wrong.

Bertrand Russell /

Without music, life would be a mistake.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols /

All about mistake...

Quotes for: truth

To be able to discern what is true as true and what is false as false — this is the mark and character of intelligence.

Emanuel Swedenborg /

Love truth, but pardon error.

Voltaire - Discourse in Verse on Man - on Freedom /

Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.

André Gide - Ainsi soit-il ou Les jeux sont faits /

The language of truth is simple.

Seneca - Epistulae morales ad Lucilium /

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

Francis Bacon - Novum organum /

Truth prevails only to the extent that we successfully assert it. The victory of reason can only be the victory of rational people.

Bertolt Brecht /

All truth quotes...

Quotes for: illusion

A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusion.

Alan Watts /

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Albert Einstein /

Illusions fall away, like the peels of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience.

Gérard de Nerval /

Knowledge kills action; action requires the veils of illusion

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - The Birth of Tragedy /

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

Alan Watts /

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

George Bernard Shaw

All illusion quotes...

Gustave Le Bon also said...

To progress, it is not enough to want to act, one must first know in which direction to act.

Gustave Le Bon - Hier et demain. Pensées brèves /

progress

The real democratic progress is not to lower the level of the elite toward that of the crowd, but to raise that of the crowd toward the elite.

Gustave Le Bon - Hier et demain. Pensées brèves /

By the mere fact that he forms part of an organised crowd, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilisation.

Gustave Le Bon - The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind /

Civilization

For it must not be supposed that merely because the justness of an idea has been proved it can be productive of effective action even on cultivated minds. This fact may be quickly appreciated by noting how slight is the influence of the clearest demonstration on the majority of men.

Gustave Le Bon - The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind /

No need to be praised when you are sure of yourself. He who seeks praise doubts his own worth.

Gustave Le Bon /

Competence without authority is as powerless as authority without competence.

Gustave Le Bon /

authority

More quotes...

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