"The mob is a sort of bear; while your ring is through its nose, it will even dance under your cudgel; but should the ring slip, and you lose your hold, the brute will turn and rend you"
About this Quote
The subtext is that crowd management is never stable, and never morally neutral. The ring isn’t legitimacy; it’s leverage. The cudgel isn’t law; it’s coercion. Porter makes the mechanics of power feel intimate and ugly, as if demagogues and would-be reformers alike are doing the same work: training a mass of people through fear, spectacle, and humiliation. The moment you start relying on those tools, you’re trapped by them. Lose your grip and the “brute will turn and rend you” - not because the crowd is inherently monstrous, but because you taught it a relationship built on force, not trust.
Contextually, Porter is writing in the long shadow of the French Revolution and the age of popular agitation in Britain, when “the people” could be invoked as moral authority or dismissed as a threat. Her line threads that needle with cynicism and anxiety: mass politics is real power, but it’s volatile, and those who instrumentalize it mistake domination for loyalty.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Porter, Jane. (2026, January 15). The mob is a sort of bear; while your ring is through its nose, it will even dance under your cudgel; but should the ring slip, and you lose your hold, the brute will turn and rend you. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-mob-is-a-sort-of-bear-while-your-ring-is-149243/
Chicago Style
Porter, Jane. "The mob is a sort of bear; while your ring is through its nose, it will even dance under your cudgel; but should the ring slip, and you lose your hold, the brute will turn and rend you." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-mob-is-a-sort-of-bear-while-your-ring-is-149243/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The mob is a sort of bear; while your ring is through its nose, it will even dance under your cudgel; but should the ring slip, and you lose your hold, the brute will turn and rend you." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-mob-is-a-sort-of-bear-while-your-ring-is-149243/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.








