Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employment

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.