George Santayana Quotes

I think herd mentality is a good thing overall. Because if every sheep had to figure out the velocity of the wolf and their personal risk, that would take forever.

Public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law.

Investors, most of them, have a herd mentality. They want to invest only if other people are investing

The problem is that we humans are deep conformists.

A crowd of grade-three thinkers, all shouting the same thing, all warming their hands at the fire of their own prejudices, will not thank you for pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs. Man is a gregarious animal, and enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way on the side of a hill.

Every time I go and shave, I assume there's someone else on the planet shaving. So I say, 'I'm gonna go shave, too.'

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.

Men are herd animals, and prefer to go with the flow, especially when moving in the other direction is harsh.

People gravitate to what they believe to be popular... Technology is enabling even more of that.

Popular opinion is the biggest 'filter' for most people - they don't have to try something if they've already been told it's not cool.

I was a bandwagon jumper. If everybody in high school listened to it, so did I.

People say things they'll never do but then do them because they want to be a part of 'this great thing.'

What is social proof? Put simply, it's the positive influence created when someone finds out that others are doing something. It's also known as informational social influence.

Online, you're trying to appeal to everyone and people who you don't know at the same time. So I think, as a side effect, it amplifies the desire for groupthink.

Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean.

There are many people for whom 'thinking' necessarily means identifying with existing trends.

Too bad your inner sheep never forgets to follow.

Humanity has a strange fondness for following processions. Get four men following a banner down the street, and, if that banner is inscribed with rhymes of pleasant optimism, in an hour, all the town will be afoot, ready to march to whatever tune the leaders care to play.

Children were pack animals; let any one of them act different from the group, and the rest would bring him down.

Worship of society and popular opinion is idolatry.

People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.

Popular thought appeals to crowds, gatherings and tribes, who use it as a way to guide the herd. It is very evident in protests - sometimes the very people doing the protesting have NO IDEA what they are talking about.

Failing conventionally is the route to go; as a group, lemmings may have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press

Gregariousness is always the refuge of mediocrities, whether they swear by Soloviev or Kant or Marx. Only individuals seek the truth, and they shun those whose sole concern is not the truth.