" He knew that he was hated, abhorred by the mass of the people, and this knowledge made him react against the external world, and at the same time increased the satisfaction and pleasure he found in the servility, solicitude, and adulation of his dependents, who had consolidated his interests and prosperity and extended to the utmost a sovereignty quite unsupported by legality and constitution. "

― Alejo Carpentier , El recurso del método