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James Madison Quotes

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
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.
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.
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.
A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.
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.
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.
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.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 essence of Government is power and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
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.
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.
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.
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.
The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
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.
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
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.
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.
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.
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.
The happy Union of these States is a wonder their Constitution a miracle their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
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?
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.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.
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.
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
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.
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.
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.