I was doing some of my more esoteric historical reading this evening when I encountered this little nugget:

In the nations of the civilized world there are two leading forms of government. The supreme power either proceeds from the people, and in this case the government very frequently presents a sad picture of weakness, and the men in power become the mere instruments of ambitious tribunes;
or the supreme power lies in the hands of a monarch or an aristocracy, and then the people are generally an object of spoliation. Periods of history in which a despot, free from egotism, made his people happy, or a majority of people paid due regard to the rights of a minority, are of rare occurrence. For this reason men even now are yet searching a way of balancing the powers in such a
manner that they may prevent each other from doing evil and leave liberty only for doing good. But to this day no one has succeeded in solving the problem, though the greatest minds have made it the study of their lives.

-- The Life and Acts of Pope Leo XIII, Benziger Brothers, 1883, p. 172