The Philosophical Emperor, a Political Experiment, or, The Progress of a False Position: (1841)
Context: After hearing incessantly that the people follow him without sense or discretion, he [the political leader] is liable to fall a victim of the delusion which he has created, and to imagine that he possesses some personal attraction, by virtue of which he is followed. The delusion soon develops itself. He will diverge from the authorized track... From habit, the people will move a little in his erratic course. Their compliance augments his delusion, and he will become increasingly regardless of the popular will, and more obstinately intent on his own. He soon becomes monomaniac, and is abandoned except by a few stragglers as crazy as himself; while he interprets the abandonment into ingratitude or heterodoxy, and grows scurrilous, turbulent, and impotent.
“The mace prodded
Will in the back again. That little habit was starting to annoy him and he was tempted to take the weapon from the sergeant major and do a little prodding of his own.”
Source: The Sorcerer in the North
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
John Flanagan 115
Irish-American hammer thrower 1873–1938Related quotes

Back to the Army Again, refrain (1894).
The Seven Seas (1896)

1920s, Viereck interview (1929)

CNN, CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, 2/10/16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3-imE2cDd0

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)

As cited in: Kay Larson, " The thin man https://books.google.nl/books?id=ZckBAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA70," New York Magazine, 7 October 1985, p. 70
Giacometti, 1985
Source: Dalemark Quartet, Drowned Ammet (1977), p. 233.