Gustave Le Bon

The leader has most often started as one of the led. He has himself been hypnotised by the idea, whose apostle he has since become. It has taken possession of him to such a degree that everything outside it vanishes, and that every contrary opinion appears to him an error or a superstition

The leaders we speak of are more frequently men of action than thinkers.

The arousing of faith-whether religious, political, or social, whether faith in a work, in a person, or an idea-has always been the function of the great leaders of crowds, and it is on this account that their influence is always very great