18 definitions
Anonymity (n.) gives a sense of invincible power in a group and removes responsibility, freeing instincts one would restrain alone.
The Automaton (n.) is what a person becomes in a crowd: no longer himself, no longer guided by his will.
The Collective mind (n.) is what a group gives its members, making them feel, think and act unlike each would alone.
Conservatism (n.) runs deep in a group: it loathes innovation and reveres tradition without limit.
Contagion (n.) spreads every feeling and act through a group so strongly that a person readily sacrifices his own interest to the collective one.
Credulity (n.) marks the group: it has no critical faculty, thinks in images, and for it the improbable does not exist.
The Crowd (n.) announced the modern age: the divine right of the masses was about to replace the divine right of kings.
The Crowd (n.) drops a person several rungs down the ladder of civilization: alone he may be cultivated, in a crowd he acts by instinct.
A Crowd (n.) cuts both ways: inhibitions fall and dormant cruelty is let loose, yet under suggestion crowds also achieve self-denial and devotion to an ideal.
The Demagogue (n.) needs no logic to move a crowd: he must paint in strong colours, exaggerate, and repeat the same thing again and again.
The Group (n.) is impulsive, changeable and irritable, cannot bear any delay between wish and fulfilment, and feels omnipotent: for it, impossibility vanishes.
The Group (n.) knows neither doubt nor uncertainty: a suspicion becomes certainty, a trace of dislike becomes furious hatred.
The Group (n.) is as intolerant as it is obedient, respects force, takes kindness for weakness, and wants to be ruled and to fear its masters.
Illusion (n.) is what groups demand: they have never thirsted after truth, and put the unreal ahead of the real.