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 MADISONIn 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.
More James Madison Quotes
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If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
JAMES MADISON -
What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?
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 heretofore done, almost everywhere.
JAMES MADISON -
A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
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 gives.
JAMES MADISON -
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.
JAMES MADISON -
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
JAMES MADISON -
The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.
JAMES MADISON -
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 -
War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.
JAMES MADISON -
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
JAMES MADISON -
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
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 public expense.
JAMES MADISON -
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 -
All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
JAMES MADISON