Gustave Le Bon Quotes

Politics is the art of making the people believe that they are in power, when in fact, they have none.

It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.

All political power is primarily an illusion …. Mirrors and blue smoke …

The people wish to be deceived; let them be deceived.

The primitive simplicity of their [the masses'] minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell big ones.

It is easier to mislead many men than one.

If you can make people believe lies are the facts, then you can control them.

Serious affairs and history are carefully laid snares for the uninformed.

If the ruler wants to play the game by himself and follow secret policies, he must present a decoy to the masses. He cannot escape the mass; but he can draw between himself and that mass an invisible curtain, a screen, on which the mass will see projected the mirage of some politics, while the real politics are being made behind it.

Slogans which deafened us so that we could not hear the truth.

When it comes to controlling human beings, there is no better instrument than lies. Because you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.

When we believe in lies, we cannot see the truth, so we make thousands of assumptions and we take them as truth. One of the biggest assumptions we make is that the lies we believe are the truth!

As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth.

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.

The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour.

A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.

People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.

What the power structure is afraid of is that we're going to learn to recognize the truth when we hear it.

Since the masses are always eager to believe something, for their benefit nothing is so easy to arrange as facts.

The right can distort anything it wants.

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

No one who lives in error is free.

The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.