Robespierre regarded any disagreement as the latest betrayal, any deviation as questionably motivated. It was once said that he was a lover of mankind who could not enter into sympathy with the minds of his own neighbors or colleagues. . . .
It could be said that the best a man can do is enlarge his ego to the betterment of his kin, of his kind, and his nation, and so find satisfaction in their widening beneficence. This, after all, is what Robespierre thought he was doing, or at least hoped he was doing, on a grandiose scale. But in the end, as happens so often to those who claim to know the truth, or believe themselves to be the messenger of God, the politics of the revolution clouded his wisdom, and the Terror darkened his judgement.
-Jay Winik, The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World: 1788-1800
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