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CROWD (THE) --- CRUELTY --- CRUISES
CRYING --- CUBA

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CROWD (THE)

Photo: Coney Island in 1945

see: "FOLLOWERS"
see: "SHEEP"
see "THE HUMAN RACE" for other related links


Little do men perceive what solitude is, and how
far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and
faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but
a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.
_Essays_ [1625], "Of Friendship"

You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on
its hind-legs. But by standing a flock of
sheep in that position you can make a crowd
of men.
--Sir Max Beerbohm (1872—1956)
English satirist and caricaturist.
_Zuleika Dobson_ [1911]

Personally I have no enthusiasm for organized jeering
sections but I hold that the spontaneous right of
raspberry should be denied to no one in America.
--Heywood Broun (1888—1939)
American journalist & father of
Heywood Hale Broun.

It is the job of thinking people, not to
be on the side of the executioners.
--Albert Camus (1913—1960)
French novelist, dramatist, and essayist who won
the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The public! The public! How many fools
does it take to make up a public?"
--Sιbastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1741—1794)
French playwright and conversationalist.

If it has to choose who will be crucified,
the crowd will always save Barabbas.
--Jean Cocteau (1889—1963)
French poet.

'It's always best on these occasions to do what
the mob do.' 'But suppose there are two mobs?'
suggested Mr. Snodgrass. 'Shout with the
largest,' replied Mr. Pickwick.
--Charles Dickens (1812—1870)
English novelist.
_The Pickwick Papers_ [1837]

The mob has many heads, but no brains.
--Thomas Fuller (1654—1734)
English writer and physician.

Two is company, three is a crowd.
--"Godey's Lady's Book" [September 1892]

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
--Thomas Gray (1716—1771)
English poet.
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" l. 73 [1751]

That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man
begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where nonconformity with
the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection;
where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of
evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the
eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter
our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.
--Learned Hand (1872—1961)
American judge.
Speech to the Board of Regents, University of
the State of New York [24 October 1952].

-

There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful,
selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than
the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it
is afraid of itself.
--William Hazlitt (1778—1830)
English essayist.
_Table Talk_ [1821-1822], "On Living to One's Self"


Every one in a crowd has the power to throw
dirt: nine out of ten have the inclination.
--William Hazlitt (1778—1830)
English essayist.


It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of the
way, in order not to be trampled to death by them.
--William Hazlitt (1778—1830)
English essayist.
_Characteristics in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims_ [1823]

-

Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells
the death of creativity. For a soul can create only
when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering
that takes place in the dark avenues of the night.
--Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907—1972)
Jewish theologian and philosopher.
_A Passion for Truth_ [1973]

[In Key West] there are more than one hundred saloons on an island
one mile wide. If you get drunk and fall down in any direction on Duval
Street, somebody said, you fall into another bar.
--Charles Kuralt (1934—1997)
American journalist and broadcaster.
_Charles Kuralt's America_ [1995] "February, Key West"

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A crowd may easily enact the part of the executioner,
but not less easily that of a martyr.
--Gustave Le Bon (1841—1931)
French social psychologist best known for his study of
the psychological characteristics of crowds [EB].
_The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind_, 1.2.1, [1895]
Viking Press edition [1960]


A crowd is a servile flock that is incapable of
[doing anything] without a master.
--Gustave Le Bon (1841—1931)
French social psychologist best known for his study of
the psychological characteristics of crowds [EB].
_The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind_, 2.3.1, [1895]
Viking Press edition [1960]

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Every snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.
--Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909—1966)
Polish writer.

Those who know they are profound strive for clarity.
Those who would like to seem profound strive for
obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot
see to the bottom of something it must be profound.
It is timid and dislikes going into the water.
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844—1900)
German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture.
_Die frφhilche Wissenschaft_ [1882]

Whenever the roles of individuals within a group become specialized, it becomes both possible and easy for the individual to pass the moral buck to some other part of the group. In this way, not only does the individual forsake his conscience but the conscience of the group as a whole can become so fragmented and diluted as to be nonexistent. . . . The plain fact of the matter is that any group will remain inevitably potentially conscienceless and evil until such time as each and every individual holds himself or herself directly responsible for the behavior of the whole group — the organism — of which he or she is a part.
--Scott Peck (1936—2005)
American author.
_People of the Lie_

What the crowd requires is mediocrity
of the highest order.
--Antoine-Augustin Prιault (1809—1879)
French sculptor.

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and
tends to produce ferocity toward those who are
not regarded as members of the herd.
--Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)
British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate.

Most people are followers, not leaders.
In fact, the more rapid the methods of
communication, the more numerous will
be the imitators.
--Fulton John Sheen (1895—1979)
Roman Catholic bishop; the first popular
preacher to appear on television.
_Thoughts For Daily Living_ [1955]

Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us
believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind
of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the
aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics
because genius and aristocrat are entirely
unafraid of and uninfluenced by the
opinions and vagaries of the crowd.
--Dame Edith Sitwell (1887—1964)
British poet and critic.
_Taken Care Of: The Autobiography of Edith Sitwell_, ch. I [1965]

He whose honor depends on the mob must day
by day strive with the greatest anxiety, act and
scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the
mob is varied and inconstant, and therefore if
a reputation is not carefully preserved it dies
quickly.
--Benedict de Spinoza (1632—1677)
Dutch-Jewish philosopher, the foremost exponent
of 17th century Rationalism.
_Ethics_ [1677] pt. III

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see
how the drove is going, and then go
with the drove.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.

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Nearly four decades ago psychologist Stanley Milgram had a
volunteer stand stock still on a busy
New York sidewalk and look up at the
sky. About one in every 25 passersby
stopped to look up, too. When five
volunteers were recruited to sky-gaze,
nearly one in five passersby stopped to
look up.

When Milgram and his colleagues assembled
a group of 18 volunteers to simultaneously
look up at nothing in particular, nearly one
in two passersby looked up to see what
was going on, snarling traffic within moments.

--_Washington Post_ [December 2007]

-

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muckle (adverb) ['mκ-kl]
Much, a great many, a large amount;
large, great (Scots English).




CRUELTY

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see "HURTING (SOMEONE)" for related links
see "IMMORALITY" for other related links


Boys throw stones at frogs for fun, but the
frogs don't die in 'fun', but in sober earnest.
--Bion the Borysthenite (325?—255? B.C.)
Greek popular philosopher.
In Plutarch _Moralia_.

The wish to hurt, the momentary intoxication with pain,
is the loophole through which the pervert climbs into
the minds of ordinary men.
--Jacob Bronowski (1908—1974)
Polish-born mathematician and humanist.
_The Face of Violence_ [1954]

Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
--Robert Burns (1759—1796)
Scottish poet and songwriter.
"Man was made to Mourn" [1786]

O poor mortals, how ye make this
earth bitter for each other.
--Thomas Carlyle (1795—1881)
Scottish historian and political philosopher.

Being cruel to be kind is just ordinary cruelty
with an excuse made for it . . . And it is right
that it should be more resented, as it is.
--Ivy Compton-Burnett (1884—1969)
English novelist.
_Daughters and Sons_ [1937]

Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain;
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks
Of harmless nature.
--William Cowper (1731—1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
"The Task", 3.326 [1785]

The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty
commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask
for their love; only for their fear.
--Heinrich Himmler (1900—1945)
German Nazi politician, police administrator,
and military commander.

Cruelty is fed, not weakened, by tears.
--Publilius Syrus (85—43 B.C.)
Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave.
_Maxims_

I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that
gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.
--Leo Rosten (1908—1997)
Polish-born American writer and social scientist.
_Captain Newman, M.D._ [1963]

I must be cruel only to be kind.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Hamlet_ [1601], act 3, sc. 4, l. 180

My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong
that we have the power to stop, and do nothing,
we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.
--Anna Sewell (1820—1878)
English author.

Caligula's familiar order [when a victim was being
executed] was: 'Make him feel that he is dying' ...
He often quoted Accius' line: 'Let them hate me,
so long as they fear me.'
--Suetonius [Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus] (c. 69—c. 122)
Roman biographer and antiquarian.
_"Galus Caligula"_ [c. 120]

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truculent [TRUCK-yuh-luhnt], adjective:
1. Fierce; savage; ferocious; barbarous.
2. Cruel; destructive; ruthless.



CRUISES

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see "TRAVEL" for related links

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"Spacious suites to enjoy as you cruise the
Norwegian fjords."

This is accompanied by a picture of a woman
in an evening dress sitting at a small table
while her husband in a tuxedo pours her a
glass of champagne. What the picture doesn't
indicate is that they have to hoist the table
on the sofa before they can open the door, he
is sitting on the toilet seat lid, the room
is below the water line, the curtains cover
a wall, and they are both trolls.

--Erma Bombeck (1927—1996)
American humorist.

-

I would die of a cruise which is a super delight
to vast numbers of travelers. It bores me even
to think of such a trip, not that I mind luxury
and lashings of delicious food and starting to
drink at 11 a. m. with a glass of champagne to
steady the stomach. But how about the organized
jollity, the awful intimacy of tablemates, the
endless walking round and round because you
can't walk anywhere else, the claustrophobia?
--Martha Gellhorn (1908—1998)
American novelist and journalist.

-

I have now seen sucrose beaches and water a
very bright blue. I have seen an all-red leisure
suit with flared lapels. I have smelled suntan
lotion spread over 2,100 pounds of hot flesh.
I have been addressed as "Mon" in three
different nations. I have seen 500 upscale
Americans dance the Electric Slide. I have
seen sunsets that looked computer-enhanced.
I have (very briefly) joined a conga line.

I have seen a lot of really big white ships. I
have seen schools of little fish with fins that
glow. I have seen and smelled all 145 cats
inside the Ernest Hemingway residence in
Key West, Florida. I now know the difference
between straight bingo and Prize-O. I have
seen fluorescent luggage and fluorescent
sunglasses and fluorescent pince-nez and
over twenty different makes of rubber
thong. I have heard steel drums and eaten
conch fritters and watched a woman in a
silver lamι projectile vomit inside a glass
elevator. I have pointed rhythmically at
the ceiling to the two-four beat of the
same disco music I hated pointing to the
ceiling to in 1977.

--David Foster Wallace (1962—2008)
American novelist, essayist, and short story writer.

-



CRYING

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.

see: "EYES"
see: "TEARS"
see "UNHAPPINESS" for other related links


You may forget the one with whom you have laughed,
but never the one with whom you have wept.
--Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931)
Lebanese poet.
_Sand and Foam_ [1926]

Life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles,
with sniffles predominating.
--O. Henry [William Sydney Porter] (1862—1910)
American short-story writer.
"The Gift of the Magi" _The Four Million_ [1906]

He who does not weep does not see.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.
_Les Misιrables_ [1862]

I love children, especially when they cry,
because then someone takes them away.
--Nancy Mitford (1904—1973)
English writer.
_The Water Beetle_, pt. 2, ch. 8 [1962]

This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,
There's nothing true but Heaven.
--Thomas Moore (1779—1852)
Irish poet, satirist, composer, and musician.
_This World Is All a Fleeting Show_

-

One summer, when I was eight, my folks and some
relatives rented cabins at Sag Harbor on Long
Island. I was outside by myself playing mumblety-
peg, trying to make the knife stick into the ground,
when a piece of dirt flew up and lodged under my
eyelid.

I ran crying into the cabin, where my Aunt Laurice
managed to get the irritant out, while I continued
bawling. When I went back outside, I overheard her
say to Aunt Gytha, 'I don't know about that boy.
He's such a crybaby.'

It stung me then, and the fact that I vividly
remember the incident almost fifty years later
suggests my youthful devastation. I remember
thinking, nobody's ever going to see me cry
again. I did not always make it.

--Colin L. Powell (1937— )
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [1989—1993] and Secretary of State [2001—2005].
_My American Journey_ [1995], "Luther and Arie's Son"

-

The young man who has not wept is a savage,
and the old man who will not laugh is a
fool.
--George Santayana (1863—1952)
Spanish-born philosopher and critic.
_Dialogues in Limbo_ [1925]

-

How much better it is to weep at joy
than to joy at weeping.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Much Ado About Nothing_ [1598—1599]


To weep is to make less
the depth of grief.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_King Henry VI_ [1590—1591] Pt. 3

-

Laugh and the world laughs with you,
Weep and you weep alone.
--Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850—1919)
American author and poet.
_Solitude_ [1883]

-----

caterwaul [KAT-uhr-wawl], intransitive verb:
1. To make a harsh cry.
2. To have a noisy argument.
noun:
A shrill, discordant sound.
Ex.: "In the early days, when people were still shocked by the
novelty of cursing, screaming, caterwauling emotional incontinents
attacking each other on stage, he [Jerry Springer] used to produce
high-falutin' justifications for the show.
--Paul Hoggart, "Paul Hoggart's television choice,"
Times (London) [9 December 2000]

lachrymose (adj.)
1. Crying or tending to cry easily and often
2. So sad as to make people cry

pule [PYOOL], intransitive verb:
To whimper; to whine.
Ex.: The first lady initially flourished as a wronged wife precisely
because she endured her humiliation so stoically; she did not
whine or pule or treat her pain as license to behave badly.
--Michelle Cottle, "God Almighty",
_New Republic_ [6 September 1999]



Click picture to ZOOM
CUBA

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.

see: "CASTRO, FIDEL"
see "PLACES" for other related links

-

But the scale of the restoration of Havana is as
nothing compared with the scale of its ruination.
It is quite literally crumbling away. One of the
most magnificent of its many magnificent streets
is known as the Prado, a wide avenue that leads
to the sea, with a central tree-lined marble walkway
down which people stroll at night in the balmy air.
Some of the beautifully proportioned mansions
along the Prado have collapsed into rubble since
the last time I was there; others have their facades
— all that remains of them-propped up by wooden
struts. The palace along the Prado that houses
the national school of ballet is a mere shell, the
ground floor containing nothing but rubble: it is
extraordinary to hear the sound of rιpιtiteurs
emerging from the upper floor of this shell. Havana
is like Beirut, without having gone through the
civil war to achieve the destruction.
--Theodore Dalrymple [pen name of Anthony (A.M.) Daniels] (1949— )
English prison doctor and writer.
"Why Havana Had To Die"


When you look into the homes that the people
have made among the ruins, there are the small,
heartbreaking signs of pride and self-respect
that one also sees in the huts of Africa: the
carefully tended plastic flowers and other cheap
ornaments, for example. A taste for kitsch among
the well-to-do is a sign of spiritual impoverishment;
but among the poor, it represents a striving for
beauty, an aspiration without the likelihood of
fulfillment. Only the old look downcast or crushed:
old people's thoughts turn naturally to the past,
and the contrast between the Havana of their youth
and the Havana of their dotage must be painful to
contemplate.
--Theodore Dalrymple [pen name of Anthony (A.M.) Daniels] (1949— )
English prison doctor and writer.
ibid.

-

I candidly confess that I have ever looked on
Cuba as the most interesting addition which
could ever be made to our system of States.
The control which, with Florida, this island
would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and
the countries and isthmus bordering on it,
as well as those whose waters flow into it,
would fill up the measure of our political
well-being.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
In a letter to James Monroe [24 October 1823].

-

It's incredible! ... They have a man that was ...
instructed by the CIA and the Attorney General
[Robert Kennedy] to assassinate Castro after the
Bay of Pigs ... so he [Castro] tortured [them] and
they told him all about it. [Castro] called Oswald
and a group in and told them ... Go ... get the job
done.
--Lyndon B. Johnson (1908—1973)
American Democratic statesman, President [1963—1969].
Telephone call to the attorney general, Ramsey Clark, 1967;
in Gus Russo _Live by the Sword_ [1998] p.395.

& see:

You can imagine what the reaction of the
country would have been if this information [about
Cuban involvement] came out. I was afraid of war.
--Lyndon B. Johnson (1908—1973)
American Democratic statesman, President [1963—1969].
To the columnist Drew Pearson _Washington Post_ [14 November 1993].

-

-

This urgent transformation of Cuba into an
important strategic base — by the presence of these
large, long-range and clearly offensive weapons of
sudden mass-destruction — constitutes an explicit
threat to the peace and security of all the Americas.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917—1963)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1961—1963].
[22 October 1962] In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.}
_History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 885.
Cohan & Major point out:
In Oct. 1962 the United States detected the installation of
Soviet nuclear missile sites in Cuba, less than 100 miles
from the American mainland. This produced the gravest
international crisis of the post-1945 era. Given the long-
standing American proprietary attitude to Cuba, this was
an extremely dangerous move for the USSR to make,
and it brought the world close to nuclear war.

& see

We're eyeball to eyeball and I think the other
fellow just blinked.
--U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk (1909—1994) [24 October 1962].
In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.}
_History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 885.
Cohan & Major add:
When Washington imposed a naval blockade on Cuba,
the Soviet Union backed down and the missiles were
withdrawn in exchange for a secret American pledge
never again to mount an invasion of Cuba.

-

-

Unfazed by the Bay of Pigs fiasco, [John F.] Kennedy endorsed a plan proposed
by Edward Lansdale, who reported to the Defense Department, for the CIA to
engage in other covert action aimed at Cuba. Called MONGOOSE, the plan included
sabotage against oil refineries and storage tanks. Robert F. Kennedy, the attorney general, in particular pressured the CIA to engage in these activities.

As it turned out, most of the agents recruited by the CIA were double agents who reported back to Castro and thwarted the plans. To embarrass the agency, Castro
later ran hours of video on national television of CIA officers meeting with Cuban
double agents. "Castro knew about everything," [Sam] Halpern said.

The CIA's efforts not only were thwarted, they were absurd. The CIA plotted to humiliate Castro with his own people by trying to get his beard to fall off — something that only someone whose level of maturity had not advanced beyond kindergarten could have dreamed up.

--Ronald Kessler
Jounalist and author of non-fiction.
_The CIA at War_ [2003], Chapter 8

-

Operation Mongoose was the secret effort approved by
President Kennedy, and spurred by Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy to make Fidel Castro disappear.
The Kennedys were "operating a damned Murder, Inc.
in the Caribbean," in the indelicate words of
President Lyndon B. Johnson.
--Tim Wiener
_New York Times_ [23 November 1997]
"The Trouble With Assassinations"


end page



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