I don't really care about the provenance of quotations most of the time, and this is one of those times. However, this cyclic collapse stuff is defeatist over-simplification, akin to various Malthusian drivel. Not very many democracies have been around long enough to be saying things like 'most will undergo' let alone 'this is nigh inevitable'. The biggest cause of collapse of democracies is their tendency to turn into dictatorships long before they ever reach multi-generational liberty and prosperity. Greece has been a democracy for not even forty years and most of that time it hasn't been "It is a democracy" but rather "It is a democracy?" I think a place has to have spent at least a generation or two where its democratic status isn't referenced with a 'yes, but', 'more or less', 'welllll...' before we can start talking about cyclical collapse.

And that's a damn short roster. If a nation has people still alive from the last time it wasn't a democracy it really hasn't had time for any cyclic collapses.