Fisher Ames Quotes

Quotes about:

• We have a dangerous trend beginning to take place in our education. We're starting to put more and more textbooks into our schools. We've become accustomed of late of putting little books into the hands of children, containing fables and moral lessons. We're spending less time in the classroom on the Bible, which should be the principal text in our schools. The Bible states these great moral lessons better than any other man-made book.

  Fisher Ames

  Inspirational, Life, Bible

  51 Copy quote

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

  Fisher Ames

  Believe, Ignorant, Democracy

  Fisher Ames (1809). “Works of Fisher Ames, compiled by a number of his friends”, p.384

  55 Copy quote

• Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a schoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples are captivating and noble....In no Book is there so good English, so pure and so elegant, and by teaching all the same they will speak alike, and the Bible will justly remain the standard of language as well as of faith.

  Fisher Ames

  Book, Teaching, Example

  40 Copy quote

• The people as a body cannot deliberate. Nevertheless, they will feel an irresistible impulse to act, and their resolutions will be dictated to them by their demagogues... and the violent men, who are the most forward to gratify those passions, will be their favorites. What is called the government of the people is in fact too often the arbitrary power of such men. Here, then, we have the faithful portrait of democracy.

  Fisher Ames

  Passion, Men, People

  Fisher Ames, John Thornton Kirkland (1854). “Works of Fisher Ames: With a selection from his speeches and correspondence”, p.393, Burt Franklin

  38 Copy quote

• 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.

  Fisher Ames

  Rocks, Feet, Water

  Attributed to Ames, speaking in the House of Representatives, 1795; quoted by R. W. Emerson in 'Essays' (2nd series, 1844) no. 7, but not traced in Ames's speeches

  28 Copy quote

• A large portion of our citizens, who will not believe, even on the evidence of facts, that any public evils exist, or are impending. They deride the apprehensions of those who foresee, that licentiousness will prove, as it ever has proved, fatal to liberty.

  Fisher Ames

  Believe, Evil, Liberty

  Fisher Ames, John Thornton Kirkland (1854). “Works of Fisher Ames: With a selection from his speeches and correspondence”, p.346, Burt Franklin

  35 Copy quote

• Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits . . . it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers.

  Fisher Ames

  Heart, Law, Liberty

  Fisher Ames (1835). “The influences of democracy on liberty, property, and the happiness of society, considered”, p.138

  31 Copy quote

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

  Fisher Ames

  Government, Order, People

  29 Copy quote

• 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.

  Fisher Ames

  Volcanoes, Democracy, Way

  Fisher Ames (1809). “Works of Fisher Ames, compiled by a number of his friends”, p.24

  75 Copy quote

• 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.

  Fisher Ames

  Freedom, Liberty, Habit

  Fisher Ames (1809). “Works of Fisher Ames, compiled by a number of his friends”, p.244

  30 Copy quote

• 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.

  Fisher Ames

  Christian, Religious, Jesus

  23 Copy quote

• [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.

  Fisher Ames

  Government, Historical, Democracy

  25 Copy quote

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

  Fisher Ames

  Men, Opinion, Heard

  Fisher Ames (1809). “Works of Fisher Ames”, p.5

  21 Copy quote

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

  Fisher Ames

  Gun, Rights, Government

  Fisher Ames, John Thornton Kirkland (1854). “Works of Fisher Ames: With a Selection from His Speeches and Correspondence”, p.54, Burt Franklin

  22 Copy quote

• [Why] should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the Sacred Book that is thus early impressed lasts long; and probably if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind.

  Fisher Ames

  Book, School, Long

  Fisher Ames, John Thornton Kirkland (1854). “Works of Fisher Ames: With a selection from his speeches and correspondence”, p.406, Burt Franklin

  18 Copy quote

• 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.

  Fisher Ames

  Heart, Soul, Liberty

  Fisher Ames (1835). “The influences of democracy on liberty, property and the happiness of society, considered, by an American [F. Ames], to which is prefixed, an introduction by H. Ewbank”, p.197

  19 Copy quote

• 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.

  Fisher Ames

  Fire, Historical, Democracy

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Fisher Ames

  Language, Purity, Admirer

  14 Copy quote

• I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful. I love liberty as well as anybody. I am proud of it, as the true title of our people to distinction above others; but . . . I would guard it by making the laws strong enough to protect it.

  Fisher Ames

  Strong, Patriotic, Successful

  Fisher Ames, John Thornton Kirkland (1969). “Works of Fisher Ames: Memoir, by J. T. Kirkland. Letters”

  15 Copy quote

• [O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country.

  Fisher Ames

  Country, Government, Essence

  8 Copy quote

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

  Fisher Ames

  Long, Historical, Democracy

  10 Copy quote

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

  Fisher Ames

  Passion, Ambition, Government

  Fisher Ames (1809). “Works of Fisher Ames”, p.429

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Fisher Ames

  Simple, Men, Democracy

  Fisher Ames (1835). “The influences of democracy on liberty, property, and the happiness of society, considered”, p.45

  18 Copy quote

• 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.

  Fisher Ames

  School, Political, Church

  Fisher Ames (1871). “Speeches of Fisher Ames in Congress, 1789-1796”, p.12

  9 Copy quote

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

  Fisher Ames

  Taken, Fog, Eggs

  "Memoirs of Theophilus Parsons". Book by Theophilus Parsons, 1859.

  11 Copy quote

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