Crowds are somewhat like the sphinx of ancient fable: It is necessary to arrive at a solution of the problems offered by their psychology or to resign ourselves to being devoured by them.

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

All the civilizations we know have been created and directed by small intellectual aristocracies, never by people in the mass. The power of crowds is only to destroy.

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

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 art of those who govern consists above all in the science of employing words.

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.