To succeed in chaining the crowd you must seem to wear the same fetters.

The hope of the world is still in dedicated minorities. The trail-blazers in human, scientific and religious freedom have always been in a minority.

If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.

No snowflake in the avalanche ever feels responsible.

When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.

Public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to be the average man.

A man has his distinctive personal scent which his wife, his children and his dog can recognize. A crowd has a generalized stink. The public is odourless.

There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none in particular are ill natured.

The public! The public! How many fools does it take to make up a public?

My hatred of crowds, the obviousness of crowds, of anything en masse. Is this why I like little-known books? A general desire to escape the main world.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

All the world over, I will back the masses against the classes.

There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.

When the multitude detests a man, inquiry is necessary; when the multitude likes a man, inquiry is equally necessary.