Friedrich Nietzsche: [A] Beyond Good and Evil, 1886 35

The democratic movement in Europe will probably arrive at results on which its naïve propagators and panegyrists, the apostles of "modern ideas", would least care to reckon. The same new conditions under which on an average a leveling and mediocritising of man will take place-a clever gregarious man-are in the highest degree suitable to give rise to exceptional men of the most dangerous and attractive qualities. For, while the capacity for adaptation, which is every day trying changing conditions, and begins a new work with every generation, almost with every decade, makes the powerfulness of the type impossible; while the collective impression of such future Europeans will probably be that of numerous, talkative, weak-willed, and very handy workmen who require a master. The democratising of Europe is at the same time an involuntary arrangement for the rearing of tyrants. Heavy is the price of coming to power: power makes its possessor stupid.