The Crowd

The characteristics of the reasoning of crowds are the association of dissimilar things possessing a merely apparent connection between each other, and the immediate generalisation of particular cases. It is arguments of this kind that are always presented to crowds by those who know how to manage them. They are the only arguments by which crowds are to be influenced. …On reading certain speeches, astonishment is felt at their weakness, and yet they had an enormous influence on the crowds which listened to them, but it is forgotten that they were intended to persuade collectivities and not to be read by philosophers. An [orator] in intimate communication with a crowd can evoke images by which it will be seduced. If he is successful his object has been attained, and twenty volumes of harangues—always the outcome of [reflection]—are not worth the few phrases which appealed to the brains it was required to convince.

— Le Bon, Gustave. 1895. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, 2. The Reasoning Power of Crowds, 33.