Fisher Ames - Liberty Quotes

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

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

Fisher Ames
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
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