Quotes 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.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

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.

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

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

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?

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.

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 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 executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

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

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

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.

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.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.

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.

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

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 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.