Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Volume 1

Front Cover
Office of the National Illustrated Library, 1852 - Common fallacies
 

Contents

I
1
II
45
III
85
IV
95
V
222
VI
242
VII
262
VIII
296

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Page vii - In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.
Page viii - Men, it has been well said, think in herds ; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Page 53 - A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.
Page 245 - After the great fire of London, which Lilly said he had foretold, he was sent for by the committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the causes of the calamity. In his "Monarchy or no Monarchy...
Page 237 - Caermerdin, and did it commend Unto these sprites to bring to perfect end ; During which work the Lady of the Lake, Whom long he loved, for him in haste did send ; Who, thereby forced his workmen to forsake, Them bound till his return their labor not to slack. In the mean time, through that false lady's train, He was surprised, and buried under beare,* Ne ever to his work returned again...
Page 267 - Gentleman in a corner of my Chamber, not regarding at all what I was doing : but he started suddenly, as if he had found some strange alteration in himself; I asked him what he ailed? I know not what...
Page 74 - That every man in want is knave or fool : " God cannot love" (says Blunt, with tearless eyes) " The wretch he starves" — and piously denies: But the good bishop, with a meeker air, Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care.
Page 57 - One of them was for a wheel for perpetual motion, capital, one million; another was for " encouraging the breed of horses in England, and improving of glebe and church lands, and repairing and rebuilding parsonage and vicarage houses." Why the clergy, who were so mainly interested in the latter clause, should have taken so much interest in the first, is only to be explained on the supposition that the scheme was projected by a knot of the fox-hunting parsons, once so common...
Page 86 - In 1634, the rage among the Dutch to possess them was so great that the ordinary industry of the country was neglected, and the population, even to its lowest dregs, embarked in the tulip trade.
Page 51 - Then stars and garters did appear Among the meaner rabble; To buy and sell, to see and hear The Jews and Gentiles squabble. The greatest ladies thither came. And plied in chariots daily. Or pawned their jewels for a sum To venture in the Alley.

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