Herd mentality

The wealthy obtain in Paris ready-made wit and science—formulated opinions which save them the need of having wit, science, or opinion of their own.

— Herd mentality

The Lord of hosts ... taught experimentally what the end is of those who sin with the multitude, when He destroyed the whole human race with a flood, saving Noah with his little family, who, by putting his faith in Him alone, “condemned the world” (Heb. 11:7). In short, depraved custom is just a kind of general pestilence in which men perish not the less that they fall in a crowd.

— Herd mentality

I would prefer to speak openly and like an oracle to give answers serviceable to all mankind, even though no one should understand me, rather than to conform to popular opinions and so win the praise freely scattered by the mob.

— Herd mentality

In order to be able to be an irreproachable member of the herd, one must, above all, be a sheep.

— Herd mentality

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.

— Herd mentality

In just the measure that education aims to develop the individual with independence of judgment rather than to indoctrinate him with tradition and custom and official dogma, to that degree it separates him from the mass and is successful insofar as it emancipates his mind from the tyranny of herd opinion.

— Herd mentality

Parliamentarianism—that is, public permission to choose between five basic political opinions—flatters and wins the favor of all those who would like to seem independent and individual, as if they fought for their opinions. Ultimately, however, it is indifferent whether the herd is commanded to have one opinion or to have five. Whoever deviates from the five public opinions and stands apart will always have the whole herd against him.

— Herd mentality

It is not the ferocity of the beast of prey that requires a moral disguise but the herd animal with its profound mediocrity, timidity, and boredom with itself.

— Herd mentality

If you have a virtue and she is your virtue, then you have her in common with nobody. But you want to call her by her name and pet her ... and behold, now you have her in common with the people and have become one of the herd with your virtue. You would do better to say “Inexpressible and nameless is that which gives my soul agony and sweetness.”... May your virtue be too exalted for the familiarity of names, and if you must speak of her, do not be ashamed to stammer.

— Herd mentality

The delight in the herd is more ancient than delight in the I; and as long as the good conscience is identified with the herd, only the bad conscience says: I.

— Herd mentality

Today, when the herd animal in Europe is the only one who attains and distributes honors, when “equality of rights” all too easily can get turned around into equality of wrongs—what I mean is into a common war against everything rare, strange, privileged, the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher responsibility, the creative fullness of power and mastery

— Herd mentality

The mass is all that which sets no value on itself—good or ill—based on specific grounds, but which feels itself “just like everybody,” and nevertheless is not concerned about it; is, in fact, quite happy to feel itself as one with everybody else.

— Herd mentality

The most radical division that it is possible to make of humanity is that which splits it into two classes of creatures: those who make great demands on themselves, piling up difficulties and duties; and those who demand nothing special of themselves, but for whom to live is to be every moment what they already are, without imposing on themselves any effort towards perfection, mere buoys that float on the waves.

— Herd mentality

That man is intellectually of the mass who, in the face of any problem, is satisfied with thinking the first thing he finds in his head. On the contrary, the excellent man is he who condemns what he finds in his mind without previous effort, and only accepts as worthy of him what is still far above him and what requires a further effort in order to be reached.

— Herd mentality

Those who practice speaking in a way to catch the favor of vulgar herd also turn out in general to be incontinent in their lives and fond of pleasure. And this surely is to be expected; for if, in providing pleasure for others, they disregard what is honorable, they would be slow to place that which is upright and sound above the gratification of their own pleasures and luxurious tastes, and slow to pursue the temperate course instead of the agreeable.

— Herd mentality