quotations about mobs
A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know--doesn't say much for them, does it?
HARPER LEE
To Kill a Mockingbird
Disruption never helps your cause. It just looks like you're afraid to have rational discussion.
BARNEY FRANK
towh hall meeting, August 18, 2009
The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Essays
I hate all mobs and tumultuary assemblies one one side or the other; they are the senseless instruments of party, the clumsy machinery by which imperfect government is carried on or opposed by imperfect politicians; they are in their very nature unlawful and unconstitutional, directly at variance with our free institutions, which are as much opposed to anarchy as to despotism; they are alternately encouraged from interest, or tolerated from fear.
D. M. MOIR
attributed, Day's Collacon
Misguided good men are more dangerous than honest bad men. It is because they are seen as good that, in and by good conscience, the mob will always, stubbornly back them without question.
CRISS JAMI
Healology
Emphasizing the crowd means de-emphasizing individual humans in the design of society, and when you ask people not to be people, they revert to bad, mob-like behaviors.
JARON LANIER
You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto
A mob is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason and traversing its work.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Essays
The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"Marginalia"
Over all crowds there seems to float a vague distress, an atmosphere of pervasive melancholy, as if any large gathering of people creates an aura of terror and pity.
EMILE ZOLA
The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories
Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labor in your fields and serve in your houses -- that man your navy, and recruit your army -- that have enabled you to defy the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob; but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people.
LORD BYRON
debate on the Frame-Work Bill in the House of Lords, February 27, 1812
Every time the Mob puts the pressure on a good man, tries to stop him from doing his duty as a citizen, it's a crucifixion.
BUDD SCHULBERG
On the Waterfront
The sum of the crowd's IQ was far below that of its most modest single member. Mobs have passions, not brains.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
You have no security, no arm of defence, so long as there are among you the materials out of which mobs are made, or tools for the lawless or the ill-disposed to use. Your only safety is in education, in an education which trains up the whole people to love law and order, which trains them up to love virtue and freedom, and which fits them to maintain freedom in the state, by first maintaining it in themselves.
ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON
An Address on Intemperance delivered in Walpole, New Hampshire, February 26, 1833