A conscious human is driven by their conscience, not popular opinion.

Since the earliest days of our youth, we have been conditioned to accept that the direction of the herd, and authority anywhere — is always right.

And such in fact is the behaviour of the specialist. In politics, in art, in social usages, in the other sciences, he will adopt the attitude of primitive, ignorant man; but he will adopt them forcefully and with self-sufficiency, and will not admit of- this is the paradox- specialists in those matters. By specialising him, civilisation has made him hermetic and self-satisfied within his limitations; but this very inner feeling of dominance and worth will induce him to wish to predominate outside his speciality. The result is that even in this case, representing a maximum of qualification in man- specialisation- and therefore the thing most opposed to the mass-man, the result is that he will behave in almost all spheres of life as does the unqualified, the mass-man.

Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered.

to understand the real reasons to uphold humility, know your real roots, remember death and study the masses

There was a large crowd around us, and every face in it looked happy. We had little opportunity to talk until we reached the woods, where there were no flowers and no people.

Most men who very seldom say a moral thing, very seldom do a wrong thing. Their immorality is simply a pose, an image that serves to differentiate them from the ‘morally perfect masses’. And as opposite to it, most men who very frequently say a moral thing, very frequently do a wrong thing. Their morality is simply a mask in order to gain the respect of the masses.

The mass-man would never have accepted authority external to himself had not his surroundings violently forced him to do so. As to-day, his surroundings do not so force him, the everlasting mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to other authority and feels himself lord of his own existence. On the contrary the select man, the excellent man is urged, by interior necessity, to appeal from himself to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, whose service he freely accepts...Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, and not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendental. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

Do not be discourage by people who reject your true purpose. Do not stop because of anxiety; stop because you are done with the mission! Don't ever be down by the susurrant call of the masses to stop, halt or abort your true purpose when you are convinced within your innermost man of how true your purpose is. A true purpose is mostly rejected, spat upon and seen as an unworthy cause by the masses until they come to a later realization of how true it is and then they accept, celebrate and enjoy it.

Be not be discourage by the rejections. Do not stop because of anxiety; stop because you are done with the mission! Be not be down by the susurrant call of the masses to stop, halt or abort your true purpose when you are convinced within your innermost man of how true your purpose is. A true purpose is mostly to a greater extent rejected, spat upon and seen as unworthy cause by the masses until they come to a later realization of how true it is to be accepted

In a world in which the common rule which binds and regulates what the general masses feel is undermined, what the general masses feel tend to become the common rule.

A civilization, when the moment has come for crowds to acquire a high hand over it, is at the mercy of too many chances to endure for long. Could anything postpone for a while the hour of its ruin, it would be precisely the extreme instability of the opinions of crowds and their growing indifference and lack of respect for all general beliefs.