Famous James Madison Quotations

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"To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea."
by James Madison
"... Religion ... [is] the basis and foundation of government ... before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe."
by James Madison
"A little rebellion now and then...is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."
by Thomas Jefferson
"A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them."
by James Madison
"A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to Farce, or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
by James Madison
"A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country."
by James Madison
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."
by James Madison
"But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm... But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity."
by James Madison
"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; have in general been as short in their lives as they are violent in their deaths."
by James Madison
"Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors."
by James Madison
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
by James Madison
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents"
by James Madison
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
by James Madison
"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy"
by James Madison
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
by James Madison
"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself"
by James Madison
"In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority."
by James Madison
"Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an ailment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency."
by James Madison
"No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time."
by James Madison
"Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government."
by James Madison
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect"
by James Madison
"Respect for character is always diminished in proportion to the number among whom the blame or praise is to be divided."
by James Madison
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home"
by James Madison
"The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right"
by James Madison
"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."
by James Madison
"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind of self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."
by James Madison, (attributed)
"What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual & surest support?"
by James Madison
"What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their natural and surest support."
by James Madison
"When you've got so many people on something trying to make it better, you're going to get a pretty good product,"
by James Madison
"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."
by James Madison
"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects"
by James Madison
"The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both."
by James Madison
"Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power."
by James Madison
"We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties."
by James Madison
"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."
by James Madison
"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights."
by James Madison
"In no instances have the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."
by James Madison
"The purpose of the seperation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."
by James Madison, 1903
"What has been the fruits of Christianity? ...Superstition, bigotry and persecution."
by James Madison, 4th president of the U.S.
"Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded."
by James Madison
"[T]he temple through which alone lies the road to that of Liberty."
by James Madison
"[Exchange] the galling burden of bachelorship for the easy yoke of matrimony."
by James Madison
"A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and..."
by James Madison
"A knowledge of the Globe and its various inhabitants, however slight ... has a kindred effect with that of seeing them as travellers, which ne..."
by James Madison
"A universal and perpetual peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary..."
by James Madison
"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."
by James Madison
"At cheaper and nearer seats of Learning parents with slender incomes may place their sons in a course of education putting them on a level wit..."
by James Madison
"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 ..."
by James Madison
"I cannot think of punishing him ... merely for coveting that liberty for which we have paid the price of so much blood, and have proclaimed so..."
by James Madison
"In our governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not ..."
by James Madison
"In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by Power. In America ... charters of power [are] granted by liberty."
by James Madison
"It is certain that every class is interested in [educational] establishments which give to the human mind its highest improvements, and to eve..."
by James Madison
"Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power."
by James Madison
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge g..."
by James Madison
"Learned institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw light over the public mind which is the best security aga..."
by James Madison
"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..."
by James Madison
"The American people owe it to themselves, and to the cause of free Government, to prove by their establishments for the advancement and diffus..."
by James Madison
"The essence of government is power, and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."
by James Madison
"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."
by James Madison
"What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and sure..."
by James Madison
"Were it possible so to accelerate the intercourse between every part of the globe that all its inhabitants could be united under the superinte..."
by James Madison
"Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done."
by James Madison
"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 po..."
by James Madison
"Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the ..."
by James Madison


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