Democracy is not tearing down; it is a building up. It is not denial of the divine right of Kings; it supplements that claim with the assertion of the divine right of all men. It does not destroy; it fulfills. It is the consummation of all theories of government, to the spirit of which all the nations of the Earth must yield. It is the great constructive course of the ages.

Twain, Mark. Autobiography of Mark Twain, edited by Harriet E. Smith, Benjamin Griffin, Victor Fischer, Michael Barry Frank, Amanda Gagel, Sharon K. Goetz, Leslie Diane Myrick, and Christopher M. Ohge. Vol. 3, University of California Press, 2015, ch. 78.

Socrates. Quoted in Republic, written by Plato, translated by Desmond Lee. Penguin Classics, 2007.

Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr. "Citizenship in a Republic." Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.: Letters and Speeches, edited by Louis Auchincloss. Library of America, 2004.