Gustave Flaubert, to Louise Colet, 1853:
Me, I hate the crowd, the herd. It always seems to me stupid or guilty of vile atrocities … I have never liked the crowd except on days of riot, if even then! … On those days there is a great breath in the air–one feels intoxicated by a human poetry as large as that of nature, but more ardent.
Path to the Possible 