Fisher Ames Quotes

Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all societies eventually will.

Given the right conditions any society can turn against democracy.

Because if you lived, as I did, several years under Nazi totalitarianism, and then 20 years in communist totalitarianism, you would certainly realize how precious freedom is, and how easy it is to lose your freedom.

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

If Bangladesh succumbs to the rule of one family, it would be a major step backward for the region.

I'm a great aficionado of history. I was deeply affected by seeing the disintegration of any chance of democracy coping with fascism in the Weimar republic, where woolly-minded, well-meaning liberalism actually allowed the forces of darkness to use democracy, to exploit democracy, to overturn democracy.

No matter how hard we may try to revive Democracy, to help her once more stand on her legs, to breathe life into her, all efforts will be futile. All hopes for a victory of democracy over fascism are the crassest illusions.

To be safe, democracy must kill its enemy where it can and when it can. The world must be all democratic or all Prussian.

Which is better, to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away, or by three thousand tyrants not a mile away?

In the battle between democracy and totalitarianism the latter adversary will, without question, win and will control the world. The era of democracy is finished and the democratic system bankrupt. There is not room in the world for two different systems or for two different economies.

The era of individualism, liberalism and democracy, of humanitarianism and freedom, is nearing its end. The masses will accept with resignation the victory of the Caesars, the strong men, and will obey them. Life will descend to a level of general uniformity, a new kind of primitivism, and the world will be better for it.....

No truly sophisticated proponent of repression would be stupid enough to shatter the facade of democratic institutions.

To trample democracy with one’s feet and to give power to a single man over almost eighty million people is so terrible that one can very probably tremble over the events which will come here.

Despotisms usually ground themselves upon the theories of extreme democracy.

The price of democratic survival in a world of totalitarianism is to give up some of the democratic luxuries of the past.

Right now, we have no possibility of politics because we have a one-party state.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

But there is a big difference in working for the West and working for a totalitarian state.

The democratic state can sometimes abuse its power as much as those who seek to destroy it abuse fundamental rights and democratic practices.

Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basically being smuggled into democratic governments.

I don't see democracy getting better. I see democracy diminishing. More rules, more legislation. Eventually governments will see everything.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

We are ready to end fascism once and for all, even in spite of the Republican government.

The Communists automatically violated the daily practices of democracy to which I was accustomed.