It is by the activity of our passions, that our reason improves: we covet knowledge merely because we covet enjoyment, and it is impossible to concei… - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We seek knowledge only because we desire enjoyment, and it is impossible to conceive why a person who has neither desires nor fears would take the trouble to reason.

The most striking peculiarity presented by a psychological crowd is the following: Whoever be the individuals that compose it, however like or unlike be their mode of life, their occupations, their character, or their intelligence, the fact that they have been transformed into a crowd puts them in possession of a sort of collective mind which makes them feel, think, and act in a manner quite different from that in which each individual of them would feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation.

Es, pues, la familia, si así se quiere, el primer modelo de las sociedades políticas: el jefe es la imagen del padre, y el pueblo es la imagen de los hijos; y habiendo nacido todos iguales y libres, sólo enajenan su libertad por su utilidad misma.

All my misfortunes come of having thought too well of my fellows.