“The most favorable moment to seize a man and influence him is when he is alone in the mass.”

“There is only one favorable moment in war; talent consists in knowing how to seize it.”

“If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences.”

“He chooses the most feared, most hated man in order to worship him as a god, feeling sure that he is alone in perceiving the god’s secret virtues.”

“It is of primary importance to keep out of view man as he exists in an insulated, separate, or in an individual state, and to regard him only as a fraction of the species. In thus setting aside his individual nature, we get quit of all which is accidental, and the individual peculiarities, which exercise scarcely any influence over the mass, become effaced of their own accord, allowing the observer to seize the general results.”

“It wasn’t Leo’s finest moment. Panic seized him, and he took off. His only comfort was that his friends did, too – and they weren’t the cowardly type.”

“Christianity is not a religion for the masses, let alone for all. Cultivated by few and translated into deeds, it is one of the most splendid blossoms that can grow in the soul of a good man.”

“She has mischievious moments when she wishes she could get him alone on a desert island…”

“When fear has seized upon the mind, man fears that only which he first began to fear.”
Ubi intravit animos pavor, id solum metuunt, quod primum formidare cœperunt.

“Most of the geniuses have a record of being isolated from the masses—Because great ideas comes only when you’re alone. Same as revelation to the prophets.”