Life
Le Bon was born in Nogent-le-Rotrou, France (near Chartres), and died in Marnes-la-Coquette. He studied medicine and toured Europe, Asia, and North Africa during the 1860s to 1880s while writing about archeology and anthropology, making some money from the design of scientific apparatus. His first great success however was the publication of Les Lois psychologiques de l'évolution des peuples (1894; The Psychology of Peoples), the first work in which he used a popularizing style that was to make his reputation secure. His best selling work, La psychologie des foules (1895; English translation The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, 1896), was published soon afterward.
In 1902, he began a series of weekly luncheons (les déjeuners du mercredi) to which prominent people of many professions were invited to discuss topical issues. The strength of Le Bon's personal networks is apparent from the guest list: participants included Henri and Raymond Poincaré (cousins, physicist and President of France respectively), Paul Valéry and Henri Bergson.
Read more about this topic: Gustave Le Bon
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The more the development of late capitalism renders obsolete or at least suspect the real possibilities of self, self- fulfillment and actualization, the more they are emphasized as if they could spring to life through an act of will alone.”
—Richard Dean Rosen (b. 1949)
“All my life I’ve felt like somebody’s wife, or somebody’s mother or somebody’s daughter. Even all the time we were together, I never knew who I was. And that’s why I had to go away. And in California, I think I found myself.”
—Robert Benton (b. 1932)
“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They can only force me who obey a higher law than I.... I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)