Quotes from James Madison, Quotable Quotes from a famous American

A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication

of them.

A popular government without popular information or the means

of acquiring it,

is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or

perhaps both.

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of

citizens, who

assemble and administer the government in

person.

A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a

reconstruction of our

political system as would provide for the

permanent liberty and happiness of

the United States.

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people,

trained in arms, is

the best most natural defense of a free

country.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the

dead and the

living, is to see that the debts against the latter do

not exceed the advances

made by the former.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and

prosperity. That

part of America which had encouraged them

most had advanced most rapidly

in population, agriculture and

the arts.

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike

the citizens of

other countries whose governments are afraid to

trust the people with arms.

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as

every past one

has done, in showing that religion and

Government will both exist in greater

purity, the less they are

mixed together.

Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute

for the

amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring

classes.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be

equally said to

have a property in his rights.

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at

liberty to exercise

it, different opinions will be formed.

By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they

cherish pride,

luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice

and servility, or hatred and

revolt.

Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and

impolitic.

Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many

lights now in the

political firmament to permit it to remain

anywhere, as it has heretofore done,

almost everywhere.

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you

will have

perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can

only end in a distorted,

bastardized form of illegitimate

government.

Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own

wars, instead

of carrying them on, at the expense of other

generations.

There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be

misapplied, and

which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than

the current one, that the

interest of the majority is the political

standard of right and wrong.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or

happiness

without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is

indebted for all

the triumphs which have been gained by reason

and humanity over error and

oppression.

Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.

War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is

to be hoped

from the progress of reason.

War should only be declared by the authority of the people,

whose toils and

treasures are to support its burdens, instead of

the government which is to

reap its fruits.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our

liberties.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on

human nature?

If men were angels, no government would be

necessary. If angels were to

govern men, neither external nor

internal controls on government would be

necessary.

What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new

branch of

commerce when he knows not that his plans may be

rendered unlawful before

they can be executed?

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than

that of Liberty

and Learning, each leaning on the other for their

mutual and surest support?

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an

education

which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried

forward at the public

expense.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly

respected. No

man is safe in his opinions, his person, his

faculties, or his possessions.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will

generally be

done.

The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right,

gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a

social right.

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever

from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil

of Europe with blood for centuries.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the

objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability

may calculate o

n every loss which can be sustained from the

more

systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of

freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by

those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be

found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer

aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.

I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of

capital punishment.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the

guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of

suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and

patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men

over men you must first enable the government to control the

governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the

liberties of the people.

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not

sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be

charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended,

from abroad.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by

men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they

cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be

understood.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who

mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the

power which knowledge gives.

Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free

people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the

best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on

the public liberty.

Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long

journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy

stages.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by

the abuse of power.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual

warfare.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be

dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every

other.

Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is

to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended,

from abroad.

Philosophy is common sense with big words.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of

Government.

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits

it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only

guardian of true liberty.

The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order

cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its

works of genius, of erudition, and of science.

The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of

money.

The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and

their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent

and happy.

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which

Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation

where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of

property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an

uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the

first object of government.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it

must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question,

whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a

miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.

The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of

liberty itself.

The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions

against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have

become the instruments of tyranny at home.

The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and

the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by

the total separation of the church from the state.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is

from them that the constitutional charter, under which the

several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

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