Fisher Ames Quotes

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.

The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.

Liberty is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits of just subordination; it consists, not so much in removing all restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent.

The happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend on piety, religion, and morality.

A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; a republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always in the water.

[the framers of the Constitution] intended our government should be a republic, which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism.

No man can be a sound lawyer in this land who is not well read in the ethics of Moses and the virtues of Jesus.

The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people.

I have heard it remarked that men are not to be reasoned out of an opinion they have not reasoned themselves into.

We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press...It is a precious pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without it.

All such men are, or ought to be, agreed, that simple governments are despotisms; and of all despotisms, a democracy, though the least durable, is the most violent.

No one ever became, or can become truly eloquent without being a reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the purity and sublimity of its language.

Democracy, in its best state, is but the politics of Bedlam; while kept chained, its thoughts are frantic, but when it breaks loose, it kills the keeper, fires the building, and perishes.

The gentleman puts me in mind of an old hen which persists in setting after her eggs are taken away.

Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.

We are not to consider ourselves, while here, as at church or school, to listen to the harangues of speculative piety; we are here to talk of the political interests committed to our charge.

I consider biennial elections as a security that the sober, second thought of the people shall be law.

Time never fails to bring every exalted reputation to a strict scrutiny.

Why then, if these new books for children must be retained, as they will be, should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book ?

A government by the passions of the multitude, or, no less correctly, according to the vices, and ambitions of their leaders is a democracy.

That can never be reasoned down which was not reasoned up.

America is rising with a giant's strength. Its bones are yet but cartilages.

A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well but will sometimes strike on a rock and go to the bottom a republic is a raft which will never sink but then your feet are always in water.

A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well but will sometimes strike on a rock and go to the bottom whilst a republic is a raft which will never sink but then your feet are always in water.