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.
- James Madison Quote
A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
- James Madison Quote
A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
- James Madison Quote
All men having power ought to be mistrusted.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
- James Madison Quote
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
- James Madison Quote
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.
- James Madison Quote
Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power.
- James Madison Quote
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
Philosophy is common sense with big words.
- James Madison Quote
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
- James Madison Quote
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
- James Madison Quote
The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
- James Madison Quote
The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.
- James Madison Quote
The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
- James Madison Quote
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.
- James Madison Quote
The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.
- James Madison Quote
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
- James Madison Quote
What is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?
- James Madison Quote
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?
- James Madison Quote
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?
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
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.
- James Madison Quote
