Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
JAMES MADISONTo 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.
More James Madison Quotes
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The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
JAMES MADISON -
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 -
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.
JAMES MADISON -
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 -
The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
JAMES MADISON -
That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.
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.
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 -
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
JAMES MADISON -
I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution.
JAMES MADISON -
Philosophy is common sense with big words.
JAMES MADISON -
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 -
We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
JAMES MADISON -
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 -
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 -
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
JAMES MADISON -
Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.
JAMES MADISON -
The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the state governments, in times of peace and security.
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 happiness of the United States.
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.
JAMES MADISON -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.
JAMES MADISON -
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
JAMES MADISON