"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."
--Alexander Tyler
“Democracy is the demand by the stupid to rule the intelligent because the stupid outnumber the intelligent."
--SFC Steven Barry, USA (Ret.)
“Democracy, which is simply majority rule, is a means to an end, but not an end in itself. Note that the word never appears in either the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution.”
--Colonel Jeff Cooper, USMC (Ret.)