Success, with the self-intoxication it inspires, aggravated by the fawning adulation of their followers, can lead the future dictator to an exaggerated opinion of himself and to the false belief that the future of both party and country depends henceforth on his whim alone. This might be called the delusion of the fly on the rear wheel who thinks he is driving the coach. If it doesn’t always lead to disaster, it inevitably causes searing humiliations
Ignazio Silone, The School for Dictators, 1938, 1963 (rev.)