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Aristotle

The basis of a democratic state is liberty; this, they affirm, is the great end of every democracy. One principle of liberty is for all to rule and be ruled in turn... It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot, and as oligarchic when they are filled by election.

Hannah Arendt

Representative government has in fact become oligarchic government... the age-old distinction between ruler and ruled which the [American and French] Revolution[s] had set out to abolish through the establishment of a republic has asserted itself again; once more, the people are not admitted to the public realm, once more the business of government has become the privilege of the few

David Hume

Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion.

Hanna Fenichel Pitkin

The arrangements we call ‘representative democracy’ have become a substitute for popular self-government, not its enactment. Calling them ‘democracy’ only adds insult to injury.

John Dewey

Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature... The democratic faith in human equality is belief that every human being, independent of the quantity or range of his personal endowment, has the right to equal opportunity with every other person for development of whatever gifts he has.

John Adams

Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.