The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome.

The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.

Imitation is often a shortcut to a solution. We copy when we lack the inclination, the ability or the time to work out an independent solution. People in a hurry will imitate more readily than people at leisure. Hustling thus tends to produce uniformity. And in the deliberate fusing of individuals into a compact group, incessant action will play a considerable role.

Totalitarianism spells simplification: an enormous reduction in the variety of aims, motives, interests, human types, and, above all, in the categories and units of power.

The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.

A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion.

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement.