You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor …. Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men’s thoughts, to speak other men’s words, to follow other men’s habits.

Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) British businessman, essayist, journalist

Biographical Studies, “Sir Robert Peel” (1907)