#masses

Your scorn for mediocrity blinds you to its vast primitive power. You stand in the glare of your own brilliance, unable to see into the dim corners of the room, to dilate your eyes and see the potential dangers of the mass, the wad of humanity. Even as I tell you this, dear student, you cannot quite believe that lesser men, in whatever numbers, can really defeat you. But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring — but inevitably victorious. The amoeba outlives the tiger because it divides and continues in its immortal monotony. The masses are the final tyrants. See how, in the arts, Kabuki wanes and withers while popular novels of violence and mindless action swamp the mind of the mass reader. And even in that timid genre, no author dares to produce a genuinely superior man as his hero, for in his rage of shame the mass man will send his yojimbo, the critic, to defend him. The roar of the plodders is inarticulate, but deafening. They have no brain, but they have a thousand arms to grasp and clutch at you, drag you down. ↗

— Trevanian

#inarticulate #masses #shibumi #wad #age

You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government. ↗

— Guy de Maupassant

#elections #fools #government #intelligence #masses

Sexuality is the lyricism of the masses. ↗

— Charles Baudelaire

#sexuality

Being slim is the new elitism. Thinness today says that you are richer, smarter and more successful than the overweight masses. ↗

— David Zinczenko

#elitism #masses #more #new #overweight

We're not as materialistic and income-tax conscious as we think. At the moment our superstitions are tucked away, but come out sometimes in strange ways sex crimes, black masses. ↗

— Terence Fisher

#black #come #conscious #crimes #masses

We ask the great masses of India to be patient a short time longer, while the cause of freedom is being fought out, not because we want to delay, but because the hard facts of war make a complete change impossible at the moment. ↗

— Stafford Cripps

#be patient #because #being #cause #change

When quick results are imperative, the manipulation of the masses through symbols may be the only quick way of having a critical thing done. ↗

— John Grierson

#done #having #imperative #manipulation #masses

Thus, the struggle for peace includes the struggle for freedom and justice for the masses of all countries. ↗

— Arthur Henderson

#freedom #includes #justice #masses #peace

The Jewish nation is indeed, the heart of the world and there is no reason for the existence of empires, kings, rulers, masses or systems aside from their reaction to the Jewish people. ↗

— Meir Kahane

#empires #existence #heart #indeed #jewish

The most intense curiosity and excitement prevailed, and though the weather was uncertain, enormous masses of densely packed people lined the road, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them. ↗

— Fanny Kemble

#enormous #excitement #flew #handkerchiefs #hats