Democracy and Its Crisis Quotes

“Implicit in the idea of degeneration from the best form of government, the aristocratic, is Plato’s claim that the members of the demos lack the knowledge and virtue of the aristoi, which is what make the latter fit to govern. He thinks that the collapse of the democratic state is inevitable given the supposed opposite characteristics of the polloi or general public: ignorance, self-interest, prejudice, envy, and rivalry.”
― A.C. Grayling, Democracy and Its Crisis