where everybody is guilty, nobody is.

Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good, and under no conditions can it either lead into freedom or constitute a proof for its existence.

The good things in history are usually of very short duration, but afterward have a decisive influence on what happens over long periods of time.

The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.

The strength of even the strongest individual can always be overpowered by the many, who often will combine for no other purpose than to ruin strength precisely because of its peculiar independence.

The business of thinking ... undoes every morning what it had finished the night before.

Under conditions of terror, most people will comply but some people will not.