The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness, which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be, liberty.
--
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.Fisher Ames
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
George Washington
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.
John Adams
All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest.
Friedrich Hayek
One of the great springs of war may be found in a very strong and general propensity of human nature, in the love of excitement, of emotion, of strong interest; a propensity which gives a charm to those bold and hazardous enterprises which call forth all the energies of our nature. No state of mind, not even positive suffering, is more painful than the want of interesting objects. The vacant soul preys on itself, and often rushes with impatience from the security which demands no effort, to the brink of peril.
William Ellery (preacher) Channing
Europeans think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they've taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities.
Michael Moore
Ames, Fisher
Ames, Mark
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