The precise moment at which a great belief is doomed is easily recognisable; it is the moment when its value begins to be called in question.

The images evoked by words being independent of their sense, they vary from age to age and from people to people, the formulas remaining identical. Certain transitory images are attached to certain words: the word is merely as it were the button of an electric bell that calls them up.

The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief.

Crowds are influenced mainly by images produced by the judicious employment of words and formulas

The role of the scholar is to destroy chimeras, that of the statesman is to make use of them.

The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.

In crowds it is stupidity and not mother wit that is accumulated.