{"quotes":[{"text":"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.","author":"Criss Jami","tags":["bad-conscience","bias","confirmation-bias","conscience","crowd","dangerous","deceit","discernment","dishonest","evil","false-prophet","falsehood","fight","flattery","good","good-and-evil","good-conscience","honest","intentions","judgment","lies","majority","minority","misguided","mistaken","misunderstanding","mob","prophet","questioning","reputation","smooth-talk","stubborn","support","truth","understanding","war"],"id":58201,"author_id":"Criss+Jami"},{"text":"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.","author":"H.L. Mencken","tags":["comprehension","democracy","emotion","government","mob","moron","politics","president","public-office","sense","vote","white-house"],"id":73246,"author_id":"H.L.+Mencken"},{"text":"He's prowling back and forth like a lion with distemper now. There's a shiny streak down one side of his face. 'I shouldn't have let her go ahead - I ought to be hung! Something's gone wrong. I can't stand this any more!' he says with a choked sound. 'I'm starting now -'But how are you -'Spring for it and fire as I go if they try to stop me.' And then as he barges out, the fat lady waddling solicitously after him, 'Stay there; take it if she calls - tell her I'm on the way-'He plunges straight at the street-door from all the way back in the hall, like a fullback headed for a touchdown. That's the best way. Gun bedded in his pocket, but hand gripping it ready to let fly through lining and all. He slaps the door out of his way without slowing and skitters out along the building, head and shoulders defensively lowered.It *was* the taxi, you bet. No sound from it, at least not at this distance, just a thin bluish haze slowly spreading out around it that might be gas-fumes if its engine were turning; and at his end a long row of un-colored spurts - of dust and stone-splinters - following him along the wall of the flat he's tearing away from. Each succeeding one a half yard too far behind him, smacking into where he was a second ago. And they never catch up. ('Jane Brown's Body').","author":"Cornell Woolrich","tags":["ambush","chase","crime","gun","gunplay","mob","mobsters","noir"],"id":73995,"author_id":"Cornell+Woolrich"},{"text":"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.","author":"Jaron Lanier","tags":["computers","crowd","individuality","internet","mob","technology"],"id":79836,"author_id":"Jaron+Lanier"},{"text":"The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.","author":"Edgar Allan Poe","tags":["imagination","nose","mob "],"id":82458,"author_id":"Edgar+Allan+Poe"},{"text":"I thought of how proud he was when he took the marks- cutting the skin of his throat in a long slash and then packing it with ashes until keloid scars rose up.He called it his second smile.","author":"Holly Black","tags":["choices","family","honor","life","loyalty","mafia","mob","mobster","pride","protection"],"id":112312,"author_id":"Holly+Black"},{"text":"Wanting to leave communist Russia is all fine and well | Actually leaving the country is where you might run into a few setbacks. Obtaining a visa for a simple vacation outside the soviet block was a long and arduous process. To immigrate to a free society was about as easy as finding whiskey in a church.","author":"Gary \"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"Gunz\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\" Govich","tags":["autobiography","criminal","mob","mobster","new-york-city","nyc","russia","russian","thug","thuglife","thugs"],"id":117080,"author_id":"Gary+%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22Gunz%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22%22+Govich"},{"text":". . . You worked for Harry King, they said, because a broken leg was bad for business, and Harry King was all about business.","author":"Terry Pratchett","tags":["business","funny","mob"],"id":127689,"author_id":"Terry+Pratchett"},{"text":"Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods. For these men know that, once ignorance is put aside, that wonderment would be taken away, which is the only means by which their authority is preserved.","author":"Baruch Spinoza","tags":["adoration","astonishment","ity","causation","cause","foolish","fools","gods","heresy","heretical","ignorance","impious","interpret","knowledge","miracles","mob","nature","philosopher","piety","preservation","stare","the-gods","thinking","truth","understanding","wonder"],"id":128478,"author_id":"Baruch+Spinoza"},{"text":"The mob not only grabs hold of art without being entitled to do so, but it also enters the artist. It takes up residence inside the artist and smashes a few holes in the wall, windows to the outer world: The mob wants to be seen.","author":"Elfriede Jelinek","tags":["art","artist","mob"],"id":142383,"author_id":"Elfriede+Jelinek"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":42,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}