"Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and 
    murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not 
    commit suicide."

    "... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence 
    and contention; have ever been found incompatible with 
    personal security or rights of property; and have in 
    general been as short in their lives as they have been 
    violent in their deaths." 

    "... government can do little positive good to the people, 
    [but] it may do an immense deal of harm. And here is where 
    the beauty of the Democratic principle comes in. Democracy 
    would prevent all this harm. It would have no man's benefit
    achieved at the expense of his neighbors ... this one 
    single rule, rationally construed and applied, is enough to
    form the starting point of all that is necessary in 
    government; to make no more laws than those useful for 
    preventing a man or body of men from infringing on the 
    rights of other men." [Emphases in original.] 

      "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to 
      have for lunch." 

    "To take from one, because it is thought that his own 
    industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in
    order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not 
    exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate 
    arbitrarily the first principle of association -- the 
    guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry 
    and the fruits acquired by it."

    "When democracy has attained full power, the majority 
    without capital necessarily eat up the capital of the 
    minority and civilization steadily decays."

    "If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or 
    modification of the Constitutional powers be in any 
    particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in 
    the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be
    no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, 
    may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon 
    by which free governments are destroyed."