Fisher Ames Quotes
April 19, 1758 – July 4, 1808
More Fisher Ames Quotes
The House is composed of very good men, not shining, but honest and reasonably well-informed, and in time they will be found to improve, and not to be much inferior in eloquence, science, and dignity, to the British Commons. They are patriotic enough, and I believe there are more stupid (as well as more shining) people in the latter, in proportion.
Fisher Ames— Letter to George Richard Minot (May 27, 1789); reported in Works of Fisher Ames (1854), ed. Seth Ames, vol. 1, p. 45.
The gentleman puts me in mind of an old hen which persists in setting after her eggs are taken away.
Fisher Ames— Reported in Memoirs of Theophilus Parsons (1859). Ames is reported to have said this while opposing Parsons as counsel in a legal case.
The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness, which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be, liberty.
Fisher Ames— The Dangers of American Liberty (1805), in Ames, Fisher, and Seth Ames (1854). Works of Fisher Ames: with a selection from his speeches and correspondence. Boston: Little, Brown. pp. 349.
The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people. Freedom of the press, too.
Fisher Ames— Letter to George Richards Minot (June 12, 1789), reported in Fisher Ames, Seth Ames, John Thornton Kirkland, Works of Fisher Ames: With a Selection from His Speeches and Correspondence (1854), p. 54.
Why then, if these books for children must be retained, as they will be, 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— Published in Palladium (January 1801), reported in Fisher Ames, John Thornton Kirkland, Works of Fisher Ames (1809), p. 134-35.
It was said by Fisher Ames that “falsehood proceeds from Maine to Georgia, while truth is pulling on his boots”.
Fisher Ames— Niles' Weekly Register (7 May 1831) 40:163
Fisher Ames expressed the popular security more wisely, when he compared a monarchy and a republic, saying, "that 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 would never sink, but then your feet are always in water."
Fisher Ames— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1844): Politics
