“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, Works of Fisher Ames: with a selection from his speeches and correspondence, 1854, Little, Brown, 349, Boston, http://books.google.com/books?id=fjoOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA349&vq=known+propensity]

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness, which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be, lib…" by Fisher Ames?

Fisher Ames12

American politician 1758–1808

Related quotes

“The liberty of the press is dear to England; the licentiousness of the press is odious to England: the liberty of it can never be so well protected as by beating down the licentiousness.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Cuthell's Case (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 674.

“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

"Circular to the States" (8 June 1783) http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch7s5.html <br class="br">1780s

“Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Literary Essays, vol. II (1870–1890), New England Two Centuries Ago

“Perhaps the best known, and certainly the most vaunted, "discovery" of modern public opinion research is the indifference and ignorance of a majority of the electorate in western democracies.”

Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) American historian

Source: Democracy Ancient And Modern (Second Edition) (1985), Chapter 1, Leaders and Followers, p. 3

“Liberty instead of Democracy!”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949) Austrian school economist and libertarian anarcho-capitalist philosopher

Freiheit statt Demokratie! <br class="br"> Interview in Junge Freiheit (24 June 2005) http://www.jf-archiv.de/archiv05/200526062409.htm

“I believe in democracy, but in real democracy, not a phony democracy in which just powerful people can speak. For me, in a democracy everyone speaks.”

Augusto Boal (1931–2009) Brazilian writer

As quoted in "To Dynamize the Audience: Interview with Augusto Boal" by Robert Enight, Canadian Theatre Review 47 (Summer 1986), pp. 41-49

“There is nothing in the world that renders a man more unlike to a saint, and more like to Satan - than to argue from God's mercy to sinful liberty; from divine goodness to licentiousness.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 1652

“Ambitious men never believe others aren’t the same.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 30, “A Thousand Nails” (p. 484).

“I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.”

Paul Krugman book The Conscience of a Liberal

Source: The Conscience of a Liberal (2007), Ch. 13. The Conscience of a Liberal http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=5887. W. W. Norton & Company. 352 pages ISBN 978-0-393-06069-0, 1st edition (2007)

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=807&chapter=88152&layout=html&Itemid=27 (6 January 1816) ME 14:384 <br class="br">1810s

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

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Fisher Ames12

Related quotes

Related topics