If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas .
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- He observes that crowds typically prefer an innocent but dangerous figure over an innocent but compromised one.
- In plain terms
- Crowds will always choose the familiar guilty party over the innocent one.
- What can you take from it?
- Groups often choose comfort and familiarity over justice.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- When have you followed the crowd?
- Why do people choose the known bad over the unknown good?
Another view
It generalizes complex human choices into a single pattern.
More from Jean Cocteau
The extreme limit of wisdom - that's what the public calls madness.
Permalink to quote #42 There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them.
Permalink to quote #44 Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
Permalink to quote #41
Related quotes
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Reinhold NiebuhrReinhold Niebuhr quote #1 I've heard it said that jail stinks of despair. What a load. If jail stinks of any emotion, it's fear: fear of the guards, fear of being beaten or gang-raped, …
John HartJohn Hart quote #1 Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it.
Giordano BrunoGiordano Bruno quote #1