Daily Inspiration Quote by Bertrand Russell

Fear doesn’t just make people cautious; it makes them tribal. Russell’s line is a cool, clinical diagnosis of how panic rewires social ethics: when the temperature rises, the first impulse isn’t solidarity, it’s sorting. “Herd instinct” is doing sly work here. It’s an insult disguised as biology, a reminder that modern citizens like to imagine themselves rational individuals right up until they start moving as a flock. The word “stimulates” suggests the process is almost mechanical, as if fear were a chemical poured into a crowd that instantly hardens into “us” and “them.”

The subtext is that cruelty often arrives wearing the mask of protection. Russell doesn’t say fear produces “strength” or “unity,” the more flattering myth societies tell themselves in emergencies. He says it “tends to produce ferocity” - not mere suspicion or prejudice, but aggression with teeth. “Not regarded” matters: membership in the herd isn’t an objective fact; it’s a verdict. That makes the target elastic: immigrants, dissidents, religious minorities, the unvaccinated, the “woke,” the “deplorables.” Whoever can be framed as outside becomes available for punishment.

Contextually, Russell lived through the industrialized mass politics of the 20th century - world wars, propaganda states, ideological purges - where fear was not an accidental emotion but a tool. The sentence reads like an anti-fascist warning stripped of slogans. It’s persuasive because it denies the comforting story that violence is caused by monsters. Russell implies it’s caused by crowds trying to feel safe, and deciding safety requires someone else to be unsafe.