When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we
find a new freedom – freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder, and betray without shame
and remorse.
—Eric Hoffer, 1980
***
Every numerous assembly is mob, let the individuals who compose it be what they will.
—Lord Chesterfield, 1751
A mob is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841
There’s a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.
—P. J. O’Rourke, 1991
Much of America’s intelligentsia has become a mob.
—George Will, 2020
I want men to be free as much from mobs as kings.
—Lord Byron, 1821
***
Evil draws men together.
—Aristotle
14
I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear.
—E. B. White, 1947
Woods have ears and fields have eyes.
—European proverb
There is no defense against reproach but obscurity.
—Joseph Addison, 1711
In an expanding universe, time is on the side of an outcast.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968
An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.
—Anonymous
15
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
—James Thurber, 1939
16
14
From his Rhetoric (written in 4th century BC).
15
This maxim is frequently misattributed to A. Blanchard et al., who used it in the title of their
2016 paper, but I have seen it published earlier as an anonymous joke.
16
The expression “safety in numbers” may be traced back at least to a Latin saying, “Defendit
Numerus”.
152
On Society and Solitude, Liberty and Civilization
find a new freedom – freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder, and betray without shame
and remorse.
—Eric Hoffer, 1980
***
Every numerous assembly is mob, let the individuals who compose it be what they will.
—Lord Chesterfield, 1751
A mob is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841
There’s a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.
—P. J. O’Rourke, 1991
Much of America’s intelligentsia has become a mob.
—George Will, 2020
I want men to be free as much from mobs as kings.
—Lord Byron, 1821
***
Evil draws men together.
—Aristotle
14
I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear.
—E. B. White, 1947
Woods have ears and fields have eyes.
—European proverb
There is no defense against reproach but obscurity.
—Joseph Addison, 1711
In an expanding universe, time is on the side of an outcast.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968
An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.
—Anonymous
15
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
—James Thurber, 1939
16
14
From his Rhetoric (written in 4th century BC).
15
This maxim is frequently misattributed to A. Blanchard et al., who used it in the title of their
2016 paper, but I have seen it published earlier as an anonymous joke.
16
The expression “safety in numbers” may be traced back at least to a Latin saying, “Defendit
Numerus”.
152
On Society and Solitude, Liberty and Civilization