Quotation from: The Valley of the Moon

Written by: Jack London

"Certainly not," Mercedes answered.

"Yet all my people fought for these things," Saxon urged,
remembering her school history and the sword of her father.

"Democracy--the dream of the stupid peoples. Oh, la la, my dear,
democracy is a lie, an enchantment to keep the work brutes
content, just as religion used to keep them content. When they
groaned in their misery and toil, they were persuaded to keep on
in their misery and toil by pretty tales of a land beyond the
skies where they would live famously and fat while the clever
ones roasted in everlasting fire. Ah, how the clever ones must
have chuckled! And when that lie wore out, and democracy was
dreamed, the clever ones saw to it that it should be in truth a
dream, nothing but a dream. The world belongs to the great and
clever."