Fisher Ames

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 will never sink, but then your feet are always in the water.

The gentleman puts me in mind of an old hen which persists in setting after her eggs are taken away.

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

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.

No one ever became, or can become truly eloquent without being a reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the purity and sublimity of its language.