Monday Quote Frenzy - Tolstoy on the Familiar Tyrant

Continual brazen flattery from everybody round him, in the teeth of obvious facts, had brought him to such a state that he no longer saw his own inconsistencies or measured his actions and words by reality, logic or even by simple common sense; but was quite convinced that all his orders, however senseless, unjust, and mutually contradictory they might be, became reasonable just and mutually accordant simply because he gave them.

As it happens, this is Tolstoy's description of Czar Nicholas I, from Hadji Murad. But it could apply to so many...